Guest Contributor Karl Pfleger argues that instead of debating aging as a disease, regulators should adopt indication-driven frameworks, focusing on distinct subpathologies and clinical significance, drawing lessons from obesity classification to incentivize comprehensive longevity interventions.

Key points

• Proposes redefining aging as a clinical indication to incentivize multi-disease registrational trials.
• Breaks aging into targetable subpathologies like senescence and proteostasis for surrogate endpoint development.
• Uses the ‘clinical obesity’ model to illustrate threshold-based classification and regulatory action.

Why it matters: It lays the groundwork for regulatory strategies that could accelerate multi-disease gerotherapeutic approvals and reshape healthspan interventions.