We Should Actually Try to Treat Aging for a Change

I am generally in favor of the sentiment offered in this commentary on recent clinical trial failures for the first attempts to guide anti-aging technologies through the FDA gauntlet, which is that researchers and developers should be aiming to treat aging, not specific age-related diseases. There is likely to be a greater incidence of failure on the way to the clinic, and for entirely avoidable reasons, if everyone is attempting to force a more or less square peg into a more or less round hole. Longevity trials: time to change the approach? Following the recent clinical trial failures by Unity Biotechnology and resTORbio, Buck Institute professor Brian Kennedy feels that a change in approach is potentially needed. "I get the idea that you target aging pathways, but then you try to treat disease because you need to get FDA approval and reimbursement from insurance companies - but if that strategy doesn't work, we've got to stop doing it. I think we should actually try to treat aging for a change." While Kennedy agrees that effort needs to continue to convince the FDA to recognise aging as a treatable disease, Kennedy also believes that there are alternative approaches that can be employed. "You don't need the FDA to approve your trial, you need an institutional review board to approve your trial. From an academic standpoint, as long as you can convince people that the trial is safe, you can use biomarkers and study the effects of these drugs. So I think...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Politics and Legislation Source Type: blogs