David Sinclair

Sinclair popularised the idea that ageing could become a treatable disease and publicly discussed scenarios in which humans might live for 120, 150 years or longer. Researchers in the biology of ageing criticised the gap between these projections and the level of evidence available in humans, as well as the tendency to present applications still largely at the preclinical stage as imminent.

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Directly implicated

Sinclair co-founded Tally Health, which markets an epigenetic cheek-swab test intended to estimate 'biological age' and track changes over time, with a one-off test priced at 229 dollars and recurring subscriptions. Wired highlighted that the science behind consumer epigenetic clocks remained young, with significant differences between methods and insufficient validation to demonstrate that a change in score corresponded to a genuine clinical benefit.

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Documented

The FDA's exclusion of nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) from the definition of a dietary supplement triggered a dispute with the supplements industry. The decision was linked to NMN having been investigated as a medicine, notably through MIB-626 developed by Metro International Biotech, a company co-founded by David Sinclair. Industry participants denounced a situation in which pharmaceutical development of a compound already sold as a supplement could close the consumer market.

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In February 2024, Animal Biosciences, a company co-founded by Sinclair and run by his brother, issued an announcement quoting Sinclair as saying that a supplement was the first product 'proven' to reverse ageing in dogs. Ageing specialists strongly challenged this claim, as no scientific publication had then demonstrated reversal of canine ageing. The wording was corrected, and Sinclair stepped down as president of the Academy for Health and Lifespan Research amid the controversy.

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Personally implicated

The Wall Street Journal reviewed companies founded or co-founded around Sinclair's work and estimated that they had raised more than one billion dollars. Four drug-development companies had gone bankrupt or largely ceased operations, while several others had conducted only limited human trials or none at all, fuelling criticism of the gap between the commercial valuation of his ideas and the therapeutic results achieved.

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Conflict-of-interest disclosures submitted to the NIH by Harvard documented Sinclair's substantial financial stakes in several companies whose activities overlapped with his academic research, including OvaScience, CohBar, Life Biosciences, Metro International Biotech and EdenRoc Sciences. In some cases, the forms explicitly indicated that the financial interests could affect the design, conduct or publication of funded research.

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Directly implicated

David Sinclair's research on resveratrol and SIRT1 activation provided the scientific basis for Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, a company he co-founded that GlaxoSmithKline acquired in 2008 for approximately 720 million dollars. In 2010, Pfizer researchers published results indicating that the activation observed with resveratrol and several compounds depended on the fluorophore used in the assay, calling the proposed mechanism into question. GSK subsequently discontinued its resveratrol programme.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Directly implicated