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| Buying Youth |
Searching for a Magic Pill
Fran Hawthorne
11/01/2007
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In Cambridge, Mass.,
Sirtris Pharmaceuticals has
concentrated and reformulated resveratrol, a substance found in red wine thought
to slow the aging process, into a once-a-day oral prescription pill, according
to its chief executive, physician Christoph Westphal. The drug has finished its
first round of safety testing, and data from a second round might be available
at year’s end. Because FDA regulators do not consider aging a disease, they
wouldn’t approve a pill that simply tried to help people extend their life span
or stay youthful. Instead, companies have to find a real age-related disease for
their drugs to work on. Sirtris currently tests its pill on diabetics and people
with a rare metabolic disorder. Because of FDA rules speeding up the review
process for drugs for rare conditions, the calorie-restriction version for the
metabolic disorder could be approved by 2012.
Meanwhile, venture capitalist Peter Thiel is financing research
into telomeres, which are like tiny caps at the end of chromosomes. They get a
little shorter every time a cell divides until they become too short; the cells
cannot divide and replenish themselves, and they become old and die. Separately,
this year New York City–based Telomerase Activation Sciences started selling a
pill, derived from the Chinese herb astragalus, which it claims activates an
enzyme that stops the shortening. One caveat: Because the product is herb-based,
the FDA doesn’t regulate it. So far only 36 men have taken it in trials; the
company claims their eyesight, sexual function, skin suppleness, immune systems
and sense of well-being all improved. A one-year treatment costs about the same
as a typical hormonal regimen: $25,000.
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