American healthcare company Insilico Medicine revealed that an artificial intelligence-accelerated drug discovery experiment found one of its drug candidates could potentially help treat patients with chronic lung disease.

Following positive indications from last year’s lung disease experiment, the company disclosed that data gathered from the same clinical trial showed the drug candidate, ‘rentosertib’, could also slow the ageing process.

The study on rentosertib was published in the journal Nature Biotechnology on Monday, stating that the molecule’s structure was generated using artificial intelligence.

In the study, rentosertib reduced biological markers of age as measured by six “ageing clocks”, a different kind of AI technology designed to predict a person’s morbidity and mortality.

“If your biological age is lower, you are likely to die later,” said Alex Zhavoronkov, the CEO of Insilico Medicine.

The study’s findings provide a framework for integrating ageing biomarkers into standard clinical trials to accelerate the discovery of geroprotective drugs and longevity therapeutics. 

Mr Zhavoronkov will present the results at Sorbonne University in Paris on Tuesday (today).