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CureMedLongevity Medicine

Anti-aging pharmaceuticals: what has actually been tested in people

No drug is approved anywhere to treat aging. Here is what each candidate has genuinely shown in humans — and what it has not.
Reviewed by CureMed LabsUpdated
Prescription tablets and capsules arranged beside a clinical trial protocol document
Every drug discussed on this page is either approved for a different disease, still in trials, or sold with no approval at all. None is approved for aging.
Simply put

No medicine anywhere in the world is approved to slow down or treat aging — not a single one, in any country. Some real drugs are being tested, but the ones being sold to you today for this purpose are running far ahead of the evidence behind them.

The short answer

No drug is approved by the FDA or the EMA to treat aging, and no regulatory pathway for such an approval exists. Everything marketed as an anti-aging pharmaceutical is one of three things: an approved drug used off-label for an unapproved purpose, a compound in early- to mid-stage trials for a specific disease rather than for aging, or something sold direct to consumers with no controlled human evidence at all. The flagship trials that were meant to prove the geroscience case — the Mayo senolytic bone trial, PEARL for rapamycin, the RTB101 Phase 3, and UNITY's senolytic programme — missed their primary endpoints or failed outright.

  • There is no FDA or EMA approval for aging, healthspan, biological age or longevity as an indication, and no aging biomarker has been qualified as a surrogate endpoint for one.
  • The best-powered test of the geroscience hypothesis was the RTB101 Phase 3 in 1,024 adults aged 65 and over: it hit its molecular target and still failed its clinical endpoint (26% vs 25%, OR 1.07, p=0.65).
  • Senolytics reduce senescent-cell markers in humans, but the Phase 2 bone trial in postmenopausal women missed its primary endpoint and UNITY's Phase 2 in osteoarthritis failed outright against placebo.
  • Semaglutide's SELECT trial is the strongest human data in this field by a wide margin — and it is a cardiovascular result in 17,604 people with existing heart disease and BMI ≥27 that measured no aging biology whatsoever.
  • TAME, the most-cited trial in longevity, has never enrolled a single participant: eleven years after its FDA endpoint agreement it remains prepared, unfunded and un-started.
Anti-aging pharmaceuticals are the most commercially aggressive corner of longevity medicine and the one where the distance between claim and evidence is widest. Telehealth companies dispense rapamycin and metformin to healthy people. Supplement brands sell fisetin and NMN as senolytics and NAD+ restorers. Offshore clinics sell gene therapy as a service. Almost none of it rests on a trial that met its primary endpoint.
This page grades every major approach against the highest tier of human evidence that genuinely exists for it — not the tier its marketing implies. Where a claim comes from a company press release rather than a published result or a posted trial outcome, we say so.

Where the field actually stands in 2026

0
Drugs approved by the FDA or EMA to treat aging
FDA and EMA approved indications, as of August 2026
17,604
Participants in the largest positive outcome trial in this field — SELECT, which measured cardiovascular events, not aging
Lincoff et al., NEJM 2023 (PMID 37952131)
1,024
Participants in the one Phase 3 that tested the geroscience hypothesis head-on, and failed its clinical endpoint
Mannick et al., Lancet Healthy Longevity 2021 (PMID 33977284)
18
People in the world's only first-in-human partial epigenetic reprogramming trial — a safety study, in the eye
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT07290244
0
Participants ever enrolled in TAME, the metformin trial most often described in the present tense
ClinicalTrials.gov, no active or recruiting TAME record, August 2026

The pattern across the field is consistent enough to state as a rule. Drugs that extend lifespan reliably in mice — rapamycin above all — have produced human trials with surrogate endpoints, safety objectives, and exploratory subgroup findings. When the field has committed to a properly powered trial with a clinical endpoint, the result has usually been negative.

That is not a reason to dismiss the science. It is a reason to be precise about which trial anyone is citing when they say a drug works.

Approved drugs used for longevity — and what they are actually approved for

DrugApproved indication(s)What the longevity use really is
DasatinibChronic myeloid leukaemia, Ph+ ALLOff-label, on an n=14 open-label pilot and an n=60 trial that missed its primary endpoint
Rapamycin / sirolimusRenal transplant rejection prophylaxis, lymphangioleiomyomatosisOff-label, on a 48-week safety trial that missed its efficacy primary
EverolimusOncology, transplant, TSC-associated indicationsOff-label, on immune-surrogate Phase 2a data
MetforminType 2 diabetesOff-label, on surrogate endpoints and contested observational data
SemaglutideT2D, chronic weight management, CV risk reduction in established CVD with overweight or obesityThe approved use is cardiometabolic. Aging is not an approved indication and was not studied
TirzepatideT2D, chronic weight management, obstructive sleep apnoea in obesitySame: an approved cardiometabolic drug, with no aging indication
An approval for one disease is never evidence for a different use. Every row here is a drug with a genuine approval being taken for something it was never approved to do.

The evidence ledger

Ranked on: the highest tier of human evidence that genuinely exists for each approach as of August 2026. Approval for a different disease does not raise a drug's tier for the longevity use, and a press release is not a tier at all.

  1. Semaglutide (GLP-1 receptor agonist)

    Approved · off-label use

    GLP-1 receptor agonist approved for type 2 diabetes, weight management and cardiovascular risk reduction; taken off-label in longevity practice.

    6.5% vs 8.0% for the composite of cardiovascular death, non-fatal MI and non-fatal stroke; HR 0.80 (95% CI 0.72–0.90), p<0.001. Population: aged 45 and over, pre-existing cardiovascular disease, BMI ≥27, no diabetes. Discontinuation for adverse events was 16.6% vs 8.2%.

    Phase 3 SELECT met a hard cardiovascular endpoint in 17,604 people. Not approved for aging; aging biology was not measured.NCT03574597 · PMID 37952131

  2. Tirzepatide (dual GIP/GLP-1 agonist)

    Approved · off-label use

    Dual incretin agonist approved for type 2 diabetes, weight management and obstructive sleep apnoea in obesity.

    n=15,374 across 671 sites in 27 countries, adults 40 and over with BMI ≥27 and no diabetes. Its five-component primary composite includes death from any cause — the first incretin outcome trial to do so. Any claim today about tirzepatide and mortality is a claim about a trial that has not read out.

    Phase 3 SURMOUNT-MMO is active and not recruiting; primary completion October 2027. No results exist.NCT05556512 · PMID 40545827 (protocol paper)

  3. Rapamycin / sirolimus (mTORC1 inhibitor)

    Approved · off-label use

    Allosteric mTORC1 inhibitor, the most reproducible lifespan-extending drug in mice, taken off-label at low intermittent doses.

    n=129, 5 mg or 10 mg weekly vs placebo. Visceral adiposity by DXA did not change (η² = 0.001, p = 0.942). Positive findings were sex- and dose-stratified, partly self-reported secondary outcomes. The sponsor, AgelessRx, is a telehealth company that sells rapamycin.

    PEARL, the only 48-week randomised placebo-controlled trial in healthy adults, missed its primary endpoint. Safety objective met.NCT04488601 · PMID 40188830

  4. Everolimus (rapalog)

    Approved · off-label use

    Rapamycin analogue with better oral pharmacokinetics, approved in oncology and transplant.

    Improved influenza vaccine response by roughly 20% in elderly volunteers (2014). In a Phase 2a of 264 people, a low-dose BEZ235 plus RAD001 combination significantly reduced self-reported infection rate over the following year (p=0.001).

    Phase 2a immune-function signals in 2014 and 2018. Geroprotection trials ongoing; no clinical aging endpoint has ever been used.PMID 25540326 · PMID 29997249

  5. Dasatinib + quercetin (senolytic)

    Approved · off-label use

    Dasatinib blocks pro-survival kinases (ABL, BCR-ABL, PDGFR-β, KIT, EPHA2, SRC); quercetin covers complementary anti-apoptotic nodes. Given intermittently to push senescent cells into apoptosis.

    In the Mayo skeletal-health trial (74 enrolled, 60 analysed) bone resorption (CTx) was no different at 20 weeks. P1NP rose 16% at weeks 2 and 4 and the effect was gone by week 20. The positive findings were exploratory subgroups in women with the highest baseline senescent-cell burden — hypothesis-generating, not evidence of effect.

    Phase 2 in postmenopausal women missed its primary endpoint. Dasatinib is approved for leukaemia only; the longevity use is entirely off-label.NCT04313634 · PMID 38956196

  6. RTB101 (catalytic TORC1 inhibitor)

    Phase 3 trials

    Catalytic TORC1 inhibitor developed by resTORbio to reduce respiratory illness in older adults.

    10 mg daily did not reduce clinically symptomatic respiratory illness: 26% vs 25%, OR 1.07, p=0.65. The preceding Phase 2b (n=652) had reached significance only on a second pre-specified analysis pooling parts 1 and 2. The drug still produced its intended antiviral gene upregulation — target engagement is not clinical benefit.

    Phase 3 failed in 1,024 adults aged 65 and over. Programme dead.PMID 33977284 · NCT03373903 (Phase 2b)

  7. UBX0101 (MDM2/p53 senolytic)

    Phase 2 trials

    Intra-articular senolytic for knee osteoarthritis, developed by UNITY Biotechnology.

    Phase 1 (n=78) and repeat-dose Phase 1 (n=35) preceded it; the long-term follow-up study was terminated. This is the most disciplined senolytic development programme the field has produced, and its Phase 2 result was negative.

    Phase 2 in 183 people failed — no benefit over placebo. Discontinued.NCT04129944

  8. UBX1325 / foselutoclax (BCL-xL senolytic)

    Phase 2 trials

    Intravitreal senolytic clearing senescent retinal endothelium in diabetic macular edema.

    The 36-week result rests on a May 2025 company announcement; the registry record has no posted results. UNITY then discontinued the study and cut its entire workforce. A non-inferiority result was not enough to sustain the company.

    Phase 2b ASPIRE (n=52) completed January 2025; per company announcement, non-inferior — not superior — to aflibercept at 36 weeks. Never filed; asset put up for sale.NCT06011798

  9. Metformin

    Approved · off-label use

    Complex I inhibitor that raises the AMP:ATP ratio and activates AMPK; proposed geroprotector because it touches several hallmark-of-aging pathways cheaply.

    MILES (n=16) was transcriptomic. A frailty-prevention trial (n=141) and several Phase 3 studies used frailty scores, mitochondrial measures and autophagy markers. MATE terminated at n=7 for failure to recruit. There is also a live signal that metformin blunts the adaptive response to exercise in older adults.

    Approved for type 2 diabetes only. Every human aging trial uses surrogate endpoints. TAME has never enrolled a participant.NCT02432287 (MILES) · NCT03451006 (MATE, terminated)

  10. ER-100 (OSK partial reprogramming)

    Phase 1 · safety only

    AAV2 delivers OCT4/SOX2/KLF4 to retinal cells; expression is switched on by 56 days of oral doxycycline, which is the safety control. The registry states it does not alter existing genes.

    n=18 planned — 12 with open-angle glaucoma for dose escalation, then 6 with NAION. Four US sites. Sentinel dosing with 28-day DSMB review at each level. Follow-up runs five years, with viral shedding and anti-AAV2 antibody monitoring; that follow-up length tells you what the residual concern is. Primary completion May 2027.

    Phase 1, single ascending dose, first-in-human. Recruiting since 2 March 2026. Safety endpoints only; no results published or posted.NCT07290244

  11. AKL003 (alpha-Klotho mRNA)

    Phase 1 · safety only

    Lipid-nanoparticle mRNA intended to raise circulating alpha-Klotho protein.

    Primary endpoints are safety and reactogenicity only. The registry lists the trial as not yet recruiting with a 15 May 2026 start, while the company's February 2026 announcement said recruitment had begun; that discrepancy is unresolved. The registry entry also contains drafting errors in its eligibility criteria.

    Phase 1b, n=21, healthy adults 50–75. Sole site is the GARM Clinic in Roatán, Honduras — outside FDA and EMA oversight.NCT07544420

  12. Fisetin

    Sold · unproven

    Dietary flavonol structurally related to quercetin, sold as a senolytic supplement.

    The two flagship Mayo frailty trials, AFFIRM and AFFIRM-LITE (Phase 2, n=40 each), opened in 2018 and are still enrolling by invitation with primary completion pushed to November 2026. Three fisetin trials were withdrawn before enrolling anyone and two more were suspended. A basic pharmacokinetics study, FISEKIN-1, is only being run in 2026 — years after the product reached shelves.

    Dietary supplement. No drug approval anywhere. No published, adequately powered, placebo-controlled trial shows a clinical benefit in any indication.NCT03430037 · NCT03675724 · NCT06796374

  13. NAD+ precursors (NR and NMN)

    Sold · unproven

    Nicotinamide riboside and nicotinamide mononucleotide raise cellular NAD+ via the salvage pathway.

    Across 33 registered trials the pattern holds. Several positive-sounding NMN studies are sponsored by NMN manufacturers, registered as 'NA' phase, and run 8–12 weeks on biomarker endpoints. The FDA's September and December 2025 letters confirming NMN is lawful in supplements are a marketing-status ruling, not an efficacy finding.

    Dietary supplements with no drug approval anywhere. They reliably raise blood NAD+ and reliably fail to produce robust clinical benefit.NCT04228640 · NCT04823260 · NCT06208527

  14. Klotho / follistatin plasmid gene transfer (Minicircle)

    Sold · unproven

    Non-viral plasmid gene transfer marketed commercially to consumers offshore as a longevity service.

    Injectable klotho plasmid (n=14, active not recruiting), combination klotho plus follistatin plasmid (n=14, completed April 2026), and follistatin plasmid in frailty and aging (n=43, completed August 2023). All are explicitly registered as non-placebo-controlled pilots. Registry presence confers an appearance of rigour that the regulatory setting does not support.

    No approval in any jurisdiction. The evidence base is three open-label, non-placebo-controlled pilot studies of 14 to 43 people.NCT07216781 · NCT07285629 · NCT06411366

  15. Therapeutic plasma exchange for aging

    Approved · off-label use

    Plasmapheresis with albumin replacement, translating mouse heterochronic parabiosis into a bid to dilute pro-aging circulating factors.

    The two aging-biomarker trials on the registry — a sham-controlled study of 40 people and an 80-person Russian study — both carry UNKNOWN status with stale records. A 'Phase 3' label on an n=40 biomarker study is registry noise. There is no adequately powered randomised evidence of a clinical aging benefit.

    Plasmapheresis is approved for specific autoimmune and haematological indications. Use for aging is off-label and sold by private clinics.NCT06534450 · NCT04897113

  16. Next-generation partial reprogramming (Altos, NewLimit)

    Preclinical only

    Epigenetic reprogramming platforms attracting the largest capital in the field.

    Reports of Altos 'early human safety testing' in 2025 are not attached to a registry record for a reprogramming therapeutic and should be treated as unverified. NewLimit raised a $435m Series C with Eli Lilly participation and narrowed to liver fibrosis in June 2026; it remains preclinical. Retro Biosciences did enter the clinic in December 2025 — with RTR242, an autophagy small molecule for Alzheimer's, not a reprogramming drug.

    No disclosed clinical programme and no registered trial for a reprogramming asset, despite roughly $3bn raised at Altos alone.

Senolytics: strong mouse data, thin human record

Senescent cells stop dividing but do not die. They accumulate with age and secrete a pro-inflammatory cocktail — the senescence-associated secretory phenotype, or SASP — that damages the tissue around them. Senolytics are designed to kill those cells selectively. In mice this works impressively. In humans the record is far thinner than the marketing suggests.

The dasatinib and quercetin combination has produced the field's one genuinely important human finding: in a small diabetic kidney disease study, senescent cell burden actually fell. Adipose and skin p16+ and p21+ cells decreased, along with IL-1α, IL-6, MMP-9 and MMP-12, by day 11. That is the first proof that senolytics do in humans what they are designed to do. It is a mechanism result in nine people, not a clinical outcome.

Dasatinib + quercetin: the human trials that have reported

TrialNCTNResult
IPF open-label pilotNCT0287498914Physical function improved; pulmonary function unchanged; SASP effects inconclusive. No control group — the authors called it a feasibility study.
IPF randomised placebo-controlled pilotNCT02874989 (RCT arm)12Tolerability only, underpowered for efficacy. Sleep disturbance and anxiety over-represented in the D+Q arm (4/6 vs 0/6).
Diabetic kidney diseaseNCT028481319 (pilot report)First proof that senolytics reduce senescent cell burden in humans: p16+/p21+ cells and inflammatory markers down at day 11.
Skeletal health, postmenopausal womenNCT0431363474 enrolled / 60 analysedPrimary endpoint MISSED. Bone resorption no different at 20 weeks. Positive findings were exploratory subgroups.
SToMP-AD, Alzheimer'sNCT040631245Dasatinib reached the CSF; quercetin was not detectable there. Cognition and neuroimaging unchanged. CSF IL-6 and GFAP increased.
Frailty in HIVNCT0714429382Active, not recruiting. NIAID-sponsored across 25 sites — one of the better-powered aging-adjacent senolytic trials. No results yet.
Six reported or well-powered records. One is a mechanism win in nine people; one is a clear primary-endpoint miss; the rest are feasibility, safety, or not yet reported.

UNITY Biotechnology is the cautionary tale, and it is worth reading closely because it produced the field's most rigorous senolytic data. Its intra-articular senolytic UBX0101 went through two Phase 1 studies and then failed a 183-person Phase 2 outright, with no benefit over placebo. Its intravitreal senolytic UBX1325 reached a Phase 2b in diabetic macular edema and, per the company's May 2025 announcement, was non-inferior — not superior — to aflibercept at 36 weeks. UNITY then discontinued the study, cut its entire workforce and put the asset up for sale.

Anyone who tells you senolytics work should be asked which trial they mean. The best-designed ones have failed or fallen short.

What is still missing from the senolytic case

  • No senolytic has ever been tested against a hard clinical endpoint — mortality, fracture, or disability incidence — in a randomised trial.
  • Fisetin, the senolytic most widely sold to consumers, has no published, adequately powered, placebo-controlled trial showing clinical benefit in any indication; its basic pharmacokinetics are only being characterised in 2026.
  • The Alzheimer's pilot found quercetin does not reach detectable levels in cerebrospinal fluid, which undermines the combination rationale for CNS indications specifically.
  • Withdrawn and suspended trials are unusually common in this literature: several senolytic studies were registered and closed without enrolling a single participant.
  • Rubedo's RLS-1496 (NCT07340697) has been described in secondary coverage as a systemic senotherapeutic longevity programme. The registered trial is an open-label Phase 1/2 topical cream for actinic keratosis in 24 people. Do not overstate it.

Rapamycin, rapalogs and metformin: the geroscience classics

mTORC1 senses nutrients and growth factors. When it is active, cells build; when it is inhibited, they shift toward autophagy and stress resistance. Inhibiting it is the most reproducible way to extend lifespan in mice, which is exactly why it dominates longevity discourse — and exactly why the human data disappoints by comparison.

PEARL is the trial most often cited as proof that rapamycin works. It was a 48-week decentralised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of intermittent compounded rapamycin at 5 mg or 10 mg weekly in 129 healthy, normatively-aging adults. Its primary endpoint — visceral adiposity by DXA — did not change at all (η² = 0.001, p = 0.942). Adverse events were comparable across groups. PEARL is evidence that low-dose intermittent rapamycin is tolerable over a year. It is not evidence that it slows aging.

mTOR and metformin trials in aging: what endpoint each actually used

ProgrammeNCT / citationNEndpoint used
PEARL, rapamycin in healthy adultsNCT04488601129Visceral adiposity by DXA — surrogate. Missed.
RTB101 Phase 3PMID 339772841,024Clinically symptomatic respiratory illness — clinical. Failed.
Everolimus, immune functionPMID 25540326 / 29997249264 (Phase 2a)Vaccine response and self-reported infection rate — surrogates.
MILES, metformin in longevityNCT0243228716Transcriptomic signature — surrogate.
Metformin to prevent frailtyNCT02570672141Frailty measures — surrogate.
MATE, Metformin and Aging TrialNCT034510067Terminated for failure to recruit.
RESTOR, rapamycin/everolimus PK-PDNCT06658093194Recruiting. Dose-finding — the work that should have preceded consumer use.
Not a single mTOR inhibitor or metformin trial has ever used a clinical aging outcome — disability, multimorbidity, mortality — as a primary endpoint in humans.

The observational case for metformin is weaker than it looks. The claim that diabetics on metformin outlive non-diabetics traces to work by Bannister and colleagues in 2014 and a 2017 meta-analysis by Campbell and colleagues. But a twenty-year analysis of Welsh health records covering 129,140 metformin patients and 68,563 sulphonylurea patients with matched non-diabetic controls found metformin patients had shorter survival than matched controls overall. The apparent benefit appeared in the first three years and reversed after five years of treatment. Shorter study windows produce a misleading longevity signal.

There is also a live signal that metformin blunts the adaptive response to exercise in older adults — which matters a great deal to anyone taking it alongside training for healthspan. Prescribing it to a normoglycaemic person for longevity is off-label, on surrogate-endpoint evidence, with a known B12-depletion risk.

GLP-1 drugs: the strongest human data, and the most misdescribed

This is the one category where the human evidence is genuinely strong. It is also the category where that strength is most frequently misdescribed. SELECT was a multicentre, double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled, event-driven superiority trial of semaglutide 2.4 mg weekly. It enrolled 17,604 people aged 45 and over, all with pre-existing cardiovascular disease and a BMI of at least 27, none with diabetes. Mean exposure was 34.2 months.

HR 0.80
Composite of cardiovascular death, non-fatal MI and non-fatal stroke (95% CI 0.72–0.90, p<0.001)
Lincoff et al., NEJM 2023 (PMID 37952131)
6.5% vs 8.0%
Absolute event rates, semaglutide vs placebo, over a mean 39.8 months of follow-up
Lincoff et al., NEJM 2023 (PMID 37952131)
16.6% vs 8.2%
Discontinuation for adverse events — a doubling, and rarely mentioned in longevity coverage
Lincoff et al., NEJM 2023 (PMID 37952131)
0
Measures of aging biology in SELECT — no epigenetic clock, no senescence marker, no biological age
SELECT trial design, NCT03574597

What else the GLP-1 record does and does not contain

  • A pooled analysis across SELECT, FLOW, STEP-HFpEF and STEP-HFpEF DM (22,282 participants) found that in the 3,743 with HFpEF, semaglutide reduced cardiovascular death or worsening heart failure (HR 0.69) — but cardiovascular death alone was not significantly reduced (HR 0.82, p=0.25).
  • Semaglutide causes substantial lean mass loss alongside fat loss. That is the opposite of what an aging population at risk of sarcopenia wants, and SELECT did not address it.
  • SURMOUNT-MMO, the tirzepatide outcome trial, is the first incretin trial to include death from any cause in its primary composite. It enrolled 15,374 people and reads out no earlier than October 2027.
  • A trial is now directly testing whether semaglutide and tirzepatide delay epigenetic aging in obese adults, with metformin as comparator (NCT07293325, n=66, primary completion April 2027). It has not reported.
  • As of today there is no published randomised evidence that any GLP-1 agonist slows a validated measure of biological aging.

Sold without approval: NAD+ precursors, compounded peptides and hGH

NAD+ is a redox cofactor and the obligatory substrate for sirtuins and PARPs, and tissue levels decline with age. Nicotinamide riboside and nicotinamide mononucleotide raise NAD+ through the salvage pathway. The hypothesis is that restoring NAD+ restores sirtuin-dependent repair and mitochondrial function.

Across 33 registered trials in aging-related conditions the pattern is consistent enough to state plainly: NAD+ precursors reliably raise blood NAD+ levels, and reliably fail to produce robust clinical benefit. Raising a biomarker is not a health outcome.

Representative NAD+ precursor trials

TrialNCTNStatus
NADage — NR in frailtyNCT06208527100Recruiting, completion December 2027
NR, neurovascular coupling in older adultsNCT05483465214Recruiting, completion June 2027
NR, bone, muscle and metabolic functionNCT0381880253Completed (Mayo)
NR in subjective cognitive decline / MCINCT0407817861Completed
Uthever NMNNCT0422864066Completed — industry-sponsored (EffePharm)
NMN anti-ageing, ages 40–65NCT0482326090Completed — industry-sponsored (Abinopharm)
NAD+ Baseline StudyNCT04220658170SUSPENDED (Elysium Health)
NAD precursors in compromised elderlyNCT0331003414TERMINATED
Note how many of the positive-sounding NMN studies are sponsored by NMN manufacturers, registered as 'NA' phase rather than as regulated drug trials, and run 8–12 weeks on biomarker endpoints.

No NAD+ precursor has an approved drug indication anywhere. No adequately powered trial has shown improvement in a hard clinical outcome. This is the largest direct-to-consumer longevity category by revenue and among the weakest by evidence — and, alongside compounded peptides and hormone protocols, the part of this field where the legal position is as unfavourable as the evidence.

The frontier: reprogramming, klotho, and the offshore problem

Partial reprogramming is the field's most exciting idea: transiently expressing OCT4, SOX2 and KLF4 — deliberately omitting MYC — to reset age-associated epigenetic marks without erasing cell identity. Full reprogramming would cause teratomas, so the entire engineering challenge is control of dose and duration.

As of 2026, exactly one partial reprogramming therapy has entered human trials. Life Biosciences' ER-100 delivers OSK to retinal cells via a modified AAV2 vector, switched on by 56 days of systemic oral doxycycline. Eighteen participants are planned: twelve with open-angle glaucoma for dose escalation, then six with NAION. Four US sites. Sentinel-participant dosing with a 28-day independent safety review at each dose level. Follow-up runs five years, monitoring anti-AAV2 antibodies, T-cell responses and viral shedding.

The distance between 'OSK reversed vision loss in mice' and 'reprogramming reverses human aging' is currently one 18-person Phase 1 safety trial in the most immunologically privileged compartment in the body — chosen precisely because systemic reprogramming is not yet safe to attempt. There are no efficacy data and none will exist before 2027.

Frontier programmes, precisely stated

ProgrammeWhat it actually isWhere it actually is
ER-100 (Life Biosciences)AAV2-delivered OSK to retinal cells, doxycycline-induciblePhase 1, n=18, recruiting since March 2026. Safety endpoints only. Primary completion May 2027, study completion March 2032 (NCT07290244)
Altos LabsReprogramming platform, roughly $3bn raisedNo disclosed clinical programme, no registered trial. Reports of 'early human safety testing' are unattached to any registry record — treat as unverified
NewLimitEpigenetic reprogramming, narrowed to liver fibrosisPreclinical. $435m Series C with Eli Lilly participation, June 2026. No human trial
Retro Biosciences RTR242Autophagy/lysosomal-function small molecule for Alzheimer's — not reprogrammingPhase 1 healthy-volunteer dosing began December 2025 in Adelaide, Australia. No ClinicalTrials.gov record located
TRIIM-X (Intervene Immune)Thymic regeneration: growth hormone + DHEA + metforminPhase 2, n=85, recruiting; no results posted. The original TRIIM 'epigenetic age reversal' claim came from n=9, open-label, no control group (NCT04375657)
ElamipretideMitochondrial cardiolipin-targeting peptideOpen-label single-arm Phase 2a in 30 healthy older adults, safety and tolerability only (NCT07275424)
Every one of these is either a safety study, preclinical, or something other than what its coverage implies.

What actually changed, and how to read the next claim

Recent developments, 2024–2026

  1. July 2024

    The Mayo senolytic bone trial published a primary-endpoint miss

    The most rigorous dasatinib-plus-quercetin trial in a healthy-aging population did not reduce bone resorption in postmenopausal women. Its positive findings were exploratory subgroups.

    Nature Medicine 2024 (PMID 38956196) · NCT04313634

  2. April 2025

    PEARL published: rapamycin safe, primary endpoint unchanged

    A year of low-dose intermittent rapamycin in 129 healthy adults met its safety objective and missed its efficacy primary. Visceral adiposity did not move.

    Aging (Albany NY) 2025 (PMID 40188830) · NCT04488601

  3. May 2025

    UNITY Biotechnology effectively exited the field

    After a Phase 2b that showed non-inferiority rather than superiority to aflibercept, the board cut the entire workforce and put UBX1325 and the rest of the pipeline up for sale. The most disciplined senolytic developer in the field is gone.

    Company announcement, 5 May 2025 · NCT06011798 (no posted results)

  4. 29 September 2025

    FDA reversed its NMN drug-exclusion determination

    Reiterated 2 December 2025. NMN is lawful in dietary supplements again, subject to New Dietary Ingredient notification. A commercial ruling, not a scientific one — and it is being marketed as though it were the latter.

    Venable LLP analysis of the 29 September 2025 FDA letters; the primary letters were not locatable on the public docket

  5. December 2025

    Retro Biosciences became clinical-stage — with an autophagy drug

    First-in-human dosing of RTR242, a small-molecule autophagy and lysosomal-function enhancer for Alzheimer's, in Adelaide. A real milestone, but not a reprogramming asset.

    Company reporting, December 2025; no ClinicalTrials.gov record located

  6. March–June 2026

    First-in-human partial reprogramming began

    ER-100 started recruiting at four US sites on 2 March 2026; the first participant was dosed on 9 June 2026 per company announcement. The field's genuine landmark — and it is an 18-person safety trial in the eye, not a systemic anti-aging therapy.

    NCT07290244 · Life Biosciences announcement, 9 June 2026

  7. June 2026

    NewLimit raised $435m with Eli Lilly participation

    Big pharma capital entering epigenetic reprogramming, narrowed to liver fibrosis. Still preclinical, with no human trial.

    Company announcement, June 2026

  8. 2026

    Offshore longevity trials proliferated, and a new generation of dosing trials opened

    Klothea's Klotho mRNA Phase 1b in Honduras and Minicircle's plasmid studies now appear on ClinicalTrials.gov while operating outside FDA and EMA jurisdiction. Meanwhile RESTOR (n=194), a UT Southwestern PK/PD study (n=60) and a Wisconsin safer-mTOR trial (n=72) opened — the field belatedly doing the dose-finding work that should have preceded consumer use.

    NCT07544420 · NCT07216781 · NCT06658093 · NCT06727305 · NCT05949658

  9. August 2026

    TAME still has not started

    Eleven years after the FDA endpoint agreement, still unfunded, still zero participants enrolled, still routinely described in the present tense.

    ClinicalTrials.gov: no active or recruiting TAME record

Five questions that separate a real result from a marketing claim

  • Which trial, and did it meet its primary endpoint? A missed primary with a positive subgroup is hypothesis-generating, not evidence. PEARL and the Mayo bone trial are both routinely cited as wins; both missed.
  • Was the endpoint clinical or a surrogate? Vaccine response, body composition, blood NAD+ and epigenetic clock readings are surrogates. RTB101 moved its molecular target and still failed the clinical endpoint in 1,024 people.
  • Who was enrolled? SELECT's population had established cardiovascular disease and BMI ≥27. Results in a diseased population do not transfer to a healthy one.
  • Is the source a publication, a posted trial result, or a press release? UBX1325's 36-week result, ER-100's dosing milestone and Klothea's recruitment claim all rest on company announcements with nothing posted to the registry.
  • Where is the trial run, and is it controlled? Open-label, no placebo, offshore, n=14 is the evidence base for products being sold today as gene therapy.

Frequently asked questions

What are the most promising anti-aging drugs in clinical trials right now?

By strength of human evidence, the honest ranking is short. Semaglutide has a positive Phase 3 outcome trial, but for cardiovascular events rather than aging. Tirzepatide has an ongoing Phase 3 that includes death from any cause in its primary composite and reads out no earlier than October 2027. ER-100, the first partial reprogramming therapy in humans, is an 18-person Phase 1 safety study in the eye. Everything else — senolytics, rapamycin, metformin, NAD+ precursors — is either running on surrogate endpoints or has already missed a primary endpoint.

Is any anti-aging drug approved by the FDA?

No. There is no FDA or EMA approval for aging, healthspan, biological age or longevity as an indication, and no established regulatory pathway to obtain one. The FDA has a biomarker qualification process, but no aging biomarker has been qualified as a surrogate endpoint for a longevity indication. Every drug marketed for this purpose is either approved for a different disease and used off-label, still in trials, or sold as a supplement with no approval at all.

Does rapamycin actually slow aging in humans?

It has not been shown to. PEARL, the only 48-week randomised placebo-controlled trial in healthy adults, ran 129 people on 5 mg or 10 mg weekly and found no change in its primary endpoint of visceral adiposity (p = 0.942). It met its safety objective, which is a genuine finding — low-dose intermittent rapamycin appears tolerable over a year. Its positive results were sex-stratified, dose-stratified, partly self-reported secondary outcomes that require replication. Note also that the trial sponsor sells rapamycin.

Do senolytics like fisetin actually work?

Dasatinib and quercetin have been shown to reduce senescent cell burden in humans — p16+ and p21+ cells and inflammatory markers fell in a nine-person diabetic kidney disease study. That is a mechanism result, not a clinical outcome. No senolytic has improved a hard clinical endpoint in an adequately powered randomised trial. Fisetin specifically, the one most widely sold, has no published, adequately powered, placebo-controlled trial showing clinical benefit in any indication, and its basic pharmacokinetics are only being characterised in 2026.

Is the TAME trial testing whether metformin slows aging?

No. TAME has never enrolled a single participant. As of August 2026 it has no ClinicalTrials.gov registration as a recruiting or active trial; it remains prepared but unfunded, at an estimated cost of around $75 million. The structural reason is that metformin is off-patent and costs pennies, so no sponsor can recoup a nine-figure trial. Its 2015 FDA agreement on a composite multi-morbidity endpoint was genuinely significant, but that significance was regulatory, not clinical.

Do GLP-1 drugs like semaglutide slow aging?

No randomised trial has shown that. SELECT is excellent evidence for something else: in 17,604 people aged 45 and over with existing cardiovascular disease and BMI ≥27, semaglutide cut major adverse cardiovascular events (HR 0.80). It enrolled no healthy or normal-weight participants and measured no aging biology at all — no epigenetic clock, no senescence marker, no biological age. A trial testing whether semaglutide and tirzepatide delay epigenetic aging is recruiting and reads out in 2027.

What side effects have been reported in anti-aging drug trials?

They are real and drug-specific. In SELECT, discontinuation for adverse events was 16.6% on semaglutide versus 8.2% on placebo, and semaglutide causes substantial lean mass loss alongside fat loss. Rapamycin carries immunosuppression, impaired wound healing, hyperlipidaemia, mouth ulcers and glucose intolerance. Dasatinib is an oncology drug with myelosuppression, pleural effusion, bleeding risk and QT effects. Metformin depletes B12 and may blunt the adaptive response to exercise in older adults. In the small IPF senolytic trial, sleep disturbance and anxiety were over-represented in the treatment arm.

Is NMN FDA-approved?

No, and this is a common misreading. In letters dated 29 September 2025, reiterated 2 December 2025, the FDA reversed its 2022 position and confirmed that NMN is not excluded from the definition of a dietary supplement, because it was marketed as a supplement before being authorised for drug investigation — and the prior marketing did not have to have been lawful, only to have happened. NMN remains a New Dietary Ingredient requiring an NDI notification, and self-affirmed GRAS does not substitute. That is a determination about whether it may lawfully be sold — a marketing-status ruling, not an approval or an efficacy finding. NAD+ precursors reliably raise blood NAD+ and have not shown a hard clinical benefit.

How can I take part in an anti-aging drug trial?

Registered trials list their sites, eligibility criteria and contacts on ClinicalTrials.gov, and several relevant studies are recruiting now — NADage for nicotinamide riboside in frailty (NCT06208527), the RESTOR rapamycin and everolimus dosing study (NCT06658093), a fisetin sepsis trial (NCT05758246), and ER-100 for partial reprogramming (NCT07290244). Two cautions. A legitimate trial does not charge you to participate; if you are being asked to pay, you are buying a service, not enrolling in research. And check the jurisdiction — some registered longevity trials run offshore, outside FDA and EMA oversight, where registry presence does not carry the same assurance.

How long before any of these drugs reaches the market as an anti-aging treatment?

There is no timeline, because there is no approval pathway. No regulator recognises aging as an indication and no aging biomarker has been qualified as a surrogate endpoint, so there is nothing for a sponsor to file against. The nearest concrete readouts are cardiometabolic rather than geroscience: SURMOUNT-MMO for tirzepatide in October 2027. ER-100's Phase 1 has primary completion in May 2027 with study completion in March 2032 — and that is a safety trial in 18 people, several development stages away from an approvable product.

Is there an anti-aging vaccine?

Not one that has reached human testing. What exists is a preclinical "senolytic vaccine" strategy — training the immune system to recognise and clear senescent cells by their surface markers, rather than clearing them with a drug like dasatinib and quercetin. In mice, one candidate extended lifespan and reduced signs of aging in a premature-aging strain; a related programme has an active FDA Investigational New Drug submission, but its first target is late-stage lung cancer, not aging, and no version of this approach has entered a human trial for a longevity indication. Anything marketed today as an "anti-aging vaccine" is not this — treat that specific phrase as a red flag rather than a citation.

Do anti-aging creams actually work?

Some ingredients have real, modest evidence for surface-level skin appearance — not for aging itself. Tretinoin and other retinoids have the strongest randomised-trial evidence for reducing fine lines and photoaging over months of daily use. Peptide- and antioxidant-based creams have far weaker evidence, mostly manufacturer-funded or short uncontrolled studies. None of this reaches the biology this site otherwise covers: no topical product has been shown to change a validated biological-age marker, senescent cell burden, or any hard aging-related outcome. "Works" here means visibly smoother skin over weeks to months, not slower aging.

What are NAD+ injections, and is there evidence they work?

NAD+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) given intravenously or by injection, marketed for energy, cognition and anti-aging. The evidence is thin: the most-cited human study is a pharmacokinetic trial in eight healthy men tracking how NAD+ moves through the body, not whether it produces any benefit. A small pilot IV trial found no serious lab abnormalities over six hours in healthy men, but did not formally measure symptoms or benefit. No randomised, placebo-controlled trial has shown a clinical benefit from NAD+ injections for any indication, and reported adverse effects during infusion — nausea, chest pressure, flushing, increased heart rate — are common enough that several published reports flag tolerability as understudied given how widely it is sold. It is not FDA-approved for any use.

Is longevity genetic, or can lifestyle override it?

Both, and the split is not 50/50 in the way it's often quoted. Twin studies estimate genetics explains roughly 20–30% of variation in human lifespan, with the rest attributable to environment, behaviour and chance — a figure that has been broadly stable across multiple twin-registry studies since the 1990s. A minority of single-gene variants (e.g. APOE, FOXO3) shift individual risk meaningfully, particularly for specific diseases like Alzheimer's, but there is no "longevity gene" that determines an individual's lifespan on its own. In practice this means family history of long life is a real but weak predictor, and it does not license fatalism about modifiable risk factors like smoking, fitness or metabolic disease, which move outcomes on a scale genetics rarely does for any one person.

Sources

Every figure and claim on this page traces to one of these. Where a source is a company announcement rather than peer-reviewed research or a regulator, it is labelled as such.

  1. 01Justice JN et al. Senolytics in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: results from a first-in-human, open-label, pilot study — EBioMedicine, 2019 · PMID 30616998
  2. 02Hickson LJ et al. Senolytics decrease senescent cells in humans: preliminary report from a clinical trial of dasatinib plus quercetin in individuals with diabetic kidney disease — EBioMedicine, 2019 · PMID 31542391
  3. 03Nambiar A et al. Senolytics dasatinib and quercetin in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: a phase I, single-blind, single-center, randomized, placebo-controlled pilot trial — EBioMedicine, 2023 · PMID 36857968
  4. 04Farr JN et al. Effects of intermittent senolytic therapy on bone metabolism in postmenopausal women: a phase 2 randomized controlled trial — Nature Medicine, 2024 · PMID 38956196
  5. 05Gonzales MM et al. Senolytic therapy to modulate the progression of Alzheimer's Disease (SToMP-AD) — preprint, not peer-reviewed — Research Square, 2023 · PMID 37162971
  6. 06Wissler Gerdes EO et al. Discovery, development, and future application of senolytics: theories and predictions — FEBS Journal, 2020 · PMID 32112672
  7. 07Moel M et al. Influence of rapamycin on safety and healthspan metrics after one year: PEARL trial results — Aging (Albany NY), 2025 · PMID 40188830
  8. 08Mannick JB et al. mTOR inhibition improves immune function in the elderly — Science Translational Medicine, 2014 · PMID 25540326
  9. 09Mannick JB et al. TORC1 inhibition enhances immune function and reduces infections in the elderly — Science Translational Medicine, 2018 · PMID 29997249
  10. 10Mannick JB et al. Targeting the biology of ageing with mTOR inhibitors to improve immune function in older adults: phase 2b and phase 3 randomised trials — Lancet Healthy Longevity, 2021 · PMID 33977284
  11. 11Lincoff AM et al. Semaglutide and cardiovascular outcomes in obesity without diabetes (SELECT) — New England Journal of Medicine, 2023 · PMID 37952131
  12. 12Kosiborod MN et al. Semaglutide versus placebo in patients with heart failure and mildly reduced or preserved ejection fraction: a pooled analysis of SELECT, FLOW, STEP-HFpEF and STEP-HFpEF DM — The Lancet, 2024 · PMID 39222642
  13. 13Lam CSP et al. Tirzepatide for reduction of morbidity and mortality in adults with obesity: rationale and design of SURMOUNT-MMO — protocol paper, no results — Obesity, 2025 · PMID 40545827
  14. 14Manni E et al. Pharmacological targeting of the senescence-associated secretory phenotype in atherosclerosis — review — Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's Archives of Pharmacology, 2026 · PMID 42133066
  15. 15Singh I, Singh AK. Senolytics as modulators of critical signaling pathways — review — Molecular Neurobiology, 2025 · PMID 41351658
  16. 16SELECT — semaglutide cardiovascular outcomes trial registry record (n=17,604) — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT03574597
  17. 17SURMOUNT-MMO — tirzepatide morbidity and mortality trial, active, not recruiting (n=15,374) — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT05556512
  18. 18PEARL — rapamycin in healthy normatively-aging adults, primary endpoint missed (n=129) — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT04488601
  19. 19Dasatinib + quercetin, skeletal health in postmenopausal women — primary endpoint missed — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT04313634
  20. 20Dasatinib + quercetin in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis — open-label pilot and randomised arm — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT02874989
  21. 21Dasatinib + quercetin in diabetic kidney disease — first human reduction in senescent cell burden — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT02848131
  22. 22SToMP-AD — senolytic therapy in Alzheimer's disease — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT04063124
  23. 23Senolytics for frailty in HIV — NIAID-sponsored, 25 sites (n=82) — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT07144293
  24. 24AFFIRM — fisetin for frailty, enrolling by invitation since 2018 — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT03430037
  25. 25AFFIRM-LITE — fisetin for frailty, enrolling by invitation since 2018 — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT03675724
  26. 26FISEKIN-1 — fisetin pharmacokinetics in young versus older adults — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT06796374
  27. 27STOP-Sepsis — fisetin, Phase 2, 10 sites (n=220), recruiting — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT05758246
  28. 28UBX0101 — Phase 2 in knee osteoarthritis, failed against placebo (n=183) — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT04129944
  29. 29ASPIRE — UBX1325 Phase 2b in diabetic macular edema, no posted results (n=52) — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT06011798
  30. 30RLS-1496 (Rubedo) — open-label Phase 1/2 topical cream for actinic keratosis (n=24) — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT07340697
  31. 31Compounded rapamycin bioavailability — AgelessRx observational study (n=67) — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT06550271
  32. 32RESTOR — rapamycin and everolimus PK-PD in older adults (n=194), recruiting — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT06658093
  33. 33Safer mTOR inhibition for human geroprotection, Phase 1 (n=72), recruiting — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT05949658
  34. 34mTOR inhibitor PK/PD in older adults, Phase 1/2 (n=60), recruiting — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT06727305
  35. 35MILES — Metformin in Longevity Study, transcriptomic endpoint (n=16) — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT02432287
  36. 36Metformin to prevent frailty (n=141), completed — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT02570672
  37. 37MATE — Metformin and Aging Trial, terminated at n=7 for failure to recruit — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT03451006
  38. 38Semaglutide and tirzepatide versus metformin on epigenetic aging (n=66), recruiting — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT07293325
  39. 39NADage — nicotinamide riboside in frailty (n=100), recruiting — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT06208527
  40. 40Nicotinamide riboside and neurovascular coupling in older adults (n=214), recruiting — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT05483465
  41. 41Nicotinamide riboside, bone, muscle and metabolic function in aging (n=53), completed — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT03818802
  42. 42Nicotinamide riboside in subjective cognitive decline and MCI (n=61), completed — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT04078178
  43. 43Uthever NMN — industry-sponsored (EffePharm), n=66, completed — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT04228640
  44. 44NMN anti-ageing in adults 40–65 — industry-sponsored (Abinopharm), n=90, completed — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT04823260
  45. 45NAD+ Baseline Study (Elysium Health) — suspended — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT04220658
  46. 46NAD precursors in compromised elderly — terminated (n=14) — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT03310034
  47. 47ER-100 — first-in-human partial epigenetic reprogramming, Phase 1 (n=18), Life Biosciences — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT07290244
  48. 48AKL003 — alpha-Klotho mRNA Phase 1b (n=21), sole site GARM Clinic, Roatán, Honduras — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT07544420
  49. 49Minicircle injectable klotho plasmid, Phase 1, open-label, non-placebo-controlled (n=14) — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT07216781
  50. 50Minicircle klotho plus follistatin plasmid, Early Phase 1, non-placebo-controlled (n=14) — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT07285629
  51. 51Minicircle follistatin plasmid in frailty and aging, Phase 1, non-placebo-controlled (n=43) — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT06411366
  52. 52AAV9-follistatin plus VEGF plasmid for age-related muscle decline, Phase 1/2 (n=12) — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT07443826
  53. 53Therapeutic plasma exchange on age-related biomarkers, sham-controlled (n=40) — status UNKNOWN — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT06534450
  54. 54Plasmapheresis with and without albumin for aging biomarkers (n=80, Russia) — status UNKNOWN — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT04897113
  55. 55TRIIM-X — thymic regeneration with growth hormone, DHEA and metformin (n=85), no results posted — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT04375657
  56. 56Elamipretide — open-label single-arm Phase 2a in healthy older adults (n=30) — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT07275424
  57. 57Combinatorial gerotherapeutic stack (AgelessRx, n=30) registered as Phase 3 — designation not credible — ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026 · NCT07475546
  58. 58Stevenson-Hoare JO et al. Twenty-year survival analysis of metformin and sulphonylurea patients versus matched controls (Welsh SAIL records) — identifier not independently verified in our dossier — BMC Public Health, 2023
  59. 59Campbell JM et al. Metformin and all-cause mortality meta-analysis — identifier not independently verified in our dossier — Ageing Research Reviews, 2017
  60. 60Bannister CA et al. Survival of diabetic patients on metformin versus matched non-diabetic controls — identifier not independently verified in our dossier — Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, 2014
  61. 61Dasatinib mechanism of action: seven curated inhibitor-type mechanism records (ABL, BCR-ABL, PDGFR-β, KIT, EPHA2, SRC), sourced to the FDA label and EMA product information — ChEMBL, EMBL-EBI, 2026 · CHEMBL1421
  62. 62UNITY Biotechnology: UBX1325 ASPIRE 36-week results and corporate restructuring — company announcement, 5 May 2025. Not peer-reviewed; no results posted to the registry — UNITY Biotechnology investor relations, 2025
  63. 63Life Biosciences: ER-100 IND clearance (January 2026) and first participant dosed (9 June 2026) — company announcement, not peer-reviewed — Life Biosciences, 2026
  64. 64FDA declares nicotinamide mononucleotide is not excluded from the dietary supplement definition — analysis of the 29 September 2025 letters. The primary FDA letters could not be located on the public docket, so this analysis is our source — Venable LLP, 2025
  65. 65Certain bulk drug substances for use in compounding that may present significant safety risks — including the table of substances whose nominations were withdrawn by the nominators — US Food and Drug Administration, 2026
  66. 66Master list of bulk drug substances nominated for use in compounding, updated 14 May 2026 — US Food and Drug Administration, 2026
  67. 6721 U.S.C. §333(e) — distribution of human growth hormone for other than an approved indication; up to five years, ten if a minor is involved — Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, 2026 · 21 U.S.C. §333(e)

Articles on this topic

  • Rapamycin for longevity: what the human evidence actually shows

    The only 48-week human trial (PEARL, n=129) missed its primary endpoint. What rapamycin has actually shown, the real risks, and who should never take it.

  • What are the most effective antiaging prescription treatments available?

    Anti-ageing prescription treatments ranked on randomised human evidence: tretinoin, botulinum toxin and fillers for visible ageing; GLP-1 agonists for metabolic ageing; statins and antihypertensives for the ageing that kills — and rapamycin, metformin, hormones and senolytics, which are prescribed for ageing without evidence for it.

  • Which antiaging medicines deliver clinically proven wrinkle reduction results?

    Medicines with clinically proven wrinkle reduction, ranked on randomised trials: botulinum toxin for dynamic lines, tretinoin and tazarotene for photoageing wrinkles, hyaluronic-acid fillers for folds, adapalene, then the over-the-counter retinol and peptides — and why sunscreen underwrites all of them.

  • What antiaging pharmaceuticals work best for skin rejuvenation?

    Anti-ageing pharmaceuticals for skin rejuvenation ranked on randomised evidence across texture, pigmentation, lines and volume: tretinoin, hydroquinone and tranexamic acid, botulinum toxin, fillers, azelaic acid, adapalene, oral isotretinoin (low-dose) — and the systemic drugs that do nothing for skin.

  • Which doctor-prescribed antiaging drugs are safest long term?

    Doctor-prescribed anti-ageing drugs ranked on long-term safety data: statins and antihypertensives (decades, millions), topical tretinoin, menopausal HRT in the window, GLP-1 agonists (years), metformin off-label, low-dose rapamycin, senolytics, testosterone 'optimisation' and growth hormone — with what is actually known about each over years.

  • How do I choose a medical-grade antiaging treatment plan?

    A ranked method for choosing a medical-grade anti-ageing treatment plan: measure first, treat what is measured, prefer on-label evidence, separate skin from systemic, demand monitoring, price the plan honestly — and the clinic-menu features that mean it is not medical-grade at all.

  • What antiaging medications should I discuss with my dermatologist?

    The anti-ageing medications worth raising with a dermatologist, ranked by how much the prescription adds over what you can buy: tretinoin, hydroquinone and tranexamic acid, neuromodulators and fillers, tazarotene, azelaic acid, low-dose isotretinoin — and what to bring to the appointment.

  • Which antiaging pharmaceuticals truly slow visible signs of aging?

    Which pharmaceuticals truly slow visible ageing, ranked by the distinction that matters: preventing future change (daily sunscreen, the only trial) versus reversing existing change (tretinoin, botulinum toxin, depigmenting agents, fillers) — and the drugs that do neither.

  • How to build an antiaging regimen using medical treatments?

    A ranked, step-by-step method for building an anti-ageing regimen from medical treatments: sunscreen and a retinoid first, pigmentation agents second, procedures for lines and volume third, adjuncts last — with the introduction schedule that stops people quitting in week two.

  • Best clinically tested antiaging medicine and pharmaceutical treatments.

    Anti-ageing medicines ranked by their actual clinical trials: statins and antihypertensives (mortality), semaglutide SELECT (cardiovascular events), tretinoin (photoageing), botulinum toxin (lines), HRT (symptoms and bone), RTB101 (failed Phase 3), senolytic Phase 2s (missed), TAME (never started) — with the trial named on every line.

  • Medical-grade antiaging drugs for reducing wrinkles and fine lines.

    Medical-grade drugs for wrinkles and fine lines ranked on evidence and on what 'medical-grade' actually means: prescription retinoids (tretinoin, tazarotene), neuromodulators, fillers, adapalene — versus 'medical-grade' cosmeceuticals that are cosmetics with a clinic markup.

  • Doctor-recommended antiaging pharmaceuticals for long-term skin health.

    The anti-ageing pharmaceuticals dermatologists recommend for long-term skin health, ranked on decades of use and trial evidence: daily sunscreen, tretinoin maintained for years, nicotinamide for skin-cancer prevention in high-risk patients, periodic depigmenting courses, neuromodulators — and the products a clinic recommends because it sells them.

Anti-aging pharma · 16 →Skincare · 1 →

Explore this section

  • Supplements, graded

    Where fisetin, quercetin, NR and NMN sit once you separate lawful-to-sell from shown-to-work.

  • Peptides

    BPC-157, CJC-1295, ipamorelin and the rest: why there is no lawful route to compound them from bulk under 503A.

  • Therapies and procedures

    Plasma exchange for aging: an approved procedure being sold for an unapproved indication.

  • Skincare, graded

    Retinoids and sunscreen have randomised trials for visible ageing; most of the rest of the shelf does not.

  • How we grade evidence

    Why an approval for one disease never raises a drug's tier for a different use.

  • Free protocol check

    If rapamycin, metformin or a senolytic is already in your stack, find out what the evidence supports.

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