A regulator accepts a marker of ageing as proof that a treatment slowed it
Every treatment on this tree faces the same wall: to be approved for ageing, it must be shown to slow ageing, and the only accepted way to show that is to wait for people to get sick or die. A marker that a regulator accepted instead, a clock or a panel of blood proteins that a treatment had to move, would cut a decade off every trial. Regulators do this in other fields (blood pressure stands in for strokes, viral load for AIDS), through formal programmes that qualify a marker on evidence. No marker of ageing has been qualified by any regulator, and as of 2026 none had been submitted far enough through the United States programme to be listed. Several foundations and companies say they are working toward it.
What would count
A regulator's formal programme qualifies a marker of ageing (a clock, a protein panel, a functional measure) as a stand-in for the outcome a trial would otherwise wait for (what the regulators call a surrogate endpoint), so that a trial can be designed to move it and an approval can rest on that, in the regulator's own published record; that is the clinic rung for this leaf. The first-human rung is reached when a regulator agrees in writing, in a registered trial's record, to a marker of ageing as the trial's main measure, before the trial runs. There is no animal rung for a regulatory act, and the idea-only rung means neither has happened.
Who settles it: The regulator's own qualification record or its written agreement to the trial's main measure; the trial registry entry that names the agreed endpoint.
Where it stands
Idea only. Not yet shown to work in any living animal, so there is no record to point at. Next rung within 5 to 20 years.
When it reaches the clinic: the project's estimate
This is the one thing on this page that is a judgment rather than a record. The project's estimate of the year it reaches the clinic is 2040, no earlier than 2032 and no later than 2080; the model draws from that range every run, with the likely year the most probable draw. Set 16 October 2026, a first pass awaiting an outside review.
| Rung | No earlier than | Most likely | No later than | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First human | 2028 | 2031 | 2045 | |
| In clinical use | 2032 | 2040 | 2080 | feeds the year at the top |
Why. A qualification takes years of evidence and a sponsor willing to submit it; the first-human rung, a regulator agreeing a marker as the main measure for one trial, is the nearer step and likely around 2031 through a company trial in a single condition. Full qualification, the clinic rung, likely follows around 2040, after the first such trial reads out and the marker proves it tracked the outcome. The earliest assumes a submission already in progress succeeds within six years; the latest allows for no marker ever being accepted because none tracks hard outcomes closely enough.
Changes to this record
None since it was written on 16 October 2026. Every change to the stage or the estimate lands here with its date, the old value, the new one and the reason, and a change to the estimate never happens because a number looked wrong: it needs a dated reason and a source.
The last readings
- 17 October 2026 Quiet
No regulator's record in the window qualifies a marker of ageing or agrees one as a trial's main measure; every source seen says none has. The one item dated in the window is a trade commentary of 2026-10-14 (Clinical Trial Vanguard) saying proteomic clocks are being used as endpoints in some prospective trials while carrying no regulatory standing, which is not a regulator's act and could not be opened. Coverage of the ARDD 2026 meeting (about 2026-10-03, so before the window) reports United States regulator staff saying a predictive marker is not a surrogate until it responds to treatment and tracks risk across trials, and a registered Sheba Medical Center trial (NCT07596576, a protocol to lower biological age in older adults; date and primary measure not seen) names no regulator's agreement in the listing. The regulator's own qualification list, which the verify list asks to be checked, could not be opened from this session.source 1, source 2, source 3, source 4
What the story so far says about it
Promised, in public
- 9 August 2022Nir Barzilai: A six-year trial of metformin against ageing in more than three thousand people aged sixty-five to seventy-nine at fourteen centres, starting in 2022, and by his own account promised for each year since about 2015.
On the record
- 31 August 2023Biomarkers of aging for the identification and evaluation of longevity interventions
- June 2016Metformin as a Tool to Target Aging
Notes
This leaf and the one on a regulator recognising ageing as a treatable condition are the two regulatory acts the kickoff names; both are at idea only, and both are written with the rungs spelt out in the test because the ladder was built for treatments. The branch is marked required for the reason this leaf states.
Not yet verified
These facts in the record were written from memory or from a secondary source and have not yet been checked against the paper, the regulator's record or the registry. Nothing here is presented as settled until it is cleared, by checking it and either deleting the line or correcting the record.
- That no marker of ageing had been qualified by the United States regulator as a stand-in outcome as of 2026-10-16, and that none had been submitted far enough to be listed, rests on a peer-reviewed count (eight markers qualified, the newest in 2018, to 2025-07-01) and an August 2026 trade article, not on the regulator's own searchable list, which should be checked. The European regulator's own list was read on 2026-10-17 and has no ageing marker.