Consultancy
Longevity & Age-Related Disease
Turning ageing biology into therapies, biomarkers and better trials
Overview
CortexBio applies the strategic and scientific frameworks built for rare disease drug development to the emerging field of longevity medicine and age-related disease therapeutics. The founding thesis — set out in the white paper Ageing as a Fatal Inborn Error of Metabolism — is that ageing and rare genetic metabolic diseases share underlying biological mechanisms, and that the tools rare disease research has already built are directly usable in ageing research.
What we do
- Longevity science translation — interpreting ageing research for practical use in drug development and healthcare.
- Age-related disease strategy — targeted approaches for diseases of ageing, built on current mechanistic understanding.
- Biomarker identification — identifying and validating biomarkers that accelerate development in age-related conditions.
- Cross-therapeutic opportunities — surfacing shared mechanisms between ageing and specific diseases.
Where this creates value
Rare disease drug development has produced some of the most rigorous small-population trial methodologies in medicine: natural history study design, biomarker-based endpoints, surrogate endpoint validation and patient engagement frameworks that work without large patient populations. These are precisely the tools longevity therapeutics need, where patient populations are defined by biological markers, clinical endpoints are still contested, and the regulatory science is still being established. The metabolic mosaic framework maps the enzyme pathways, cellular mechanisms and molecular processes that appear in both rare disease and normal ageing, and is the analytical basis of this work — enzyme activity that declines to 20–50% of youthful function by age 80 is the same kind of decline rare metabolic disorders already characterise in detail.
Why CortexBio
Longevity is a young field borrowing methods from an older one, and most of those methods were built in rare disease. Dima Martini-Drew, MD, brings 30 years of rare disease development across Genzyme, Astellas and Abbott — four enzyme replacement therapy programmes launched, and a founding industry membership of the Critical Path Institute — to a field where that discipline is still being established. The metabolic mosaic framework is her own work, published with registered DOIs, so the analysis rests on citable evidence rather than on a position.
Who this is for
Pharmaceutical and biotech teams developing interventions targeting age-related metabolic decline, investors evaluating longevity assets who need the underlying biology pressure-tested, and healthcare innovators building clinical programmes in metabolic ageing. Because this field is younger than rare disease drug development, the most common need is a second opinion on whether a longevity hypothesis is grounded in mechanism that already has evidence behind it — often from the rare disease literature — or is resting on an assumption that has not yet been tested.
Frequently asked questions
What is the connection between rare diseases and ageing?
CortexBio's founding thesis is that ageing and rare genetic metabolic diseases share underlying biological mechanisms. The enzyme activity declines that characterise rare metabolic disorders also occur in normal ageing. This reframes ageing not as an inevitable process but as a metabolic disorder amenable to the same therapeutic strategies already being developed for rare diseases.
What is longevity consultancy and who is it for?
It means applying the strategic and scientific frameworks of rare disease drug development to longevity medicine and age-related disease therapeutics — relevant for teams developing interventions targeting age-related metabolic decline, investors evaluating longevity assets, and healthcare innovators building clinical programmes in metabolic ageing.
What is the metabolic mosaic framework?
CortexBio's conceptual framework mapping the shared biological pathways connecting rare metabolic diseases and age-related decline — the enzyme pathways, cellular mechanisms and molecular processes that appear in both, and the analytical basis of this longevity work.
Why does rare disease expertise matter for longevity drug development?
Rare disease development has produced the most rigorous small-population trial methodologies in medicine — exactly the tools longevity therapeutics need, where patient populations are defined by biological markers and regulatory science is still being established.
Is there scientific evidence that ageing can be understood as a metabolic disorder?
Yes — the basis is documented in the white paper Ageing as a Fatal Inborn Error of Metabolism, which draws on peer-reviewed research in enzyme biology, mitochondrial function, lysosomal storage and cellular senescence. The full white paper is available via CortexBio Insight.
How an engagement works
Longevity engagements typically begin by locating where a company's asset or hypothesis sits within the metabolic mosaic framework — which rare disease pathways share mechanism with the age-related decline being targeted, and what evidence already exists from that adjacent field. From there CortexBio identifies the biomarkers, endpoints and comparator approaches that are most likely to translate, and flags where the regulatory science is genuinely unsettled rather than merely unfamiliar. For investors, the same lens is used to pressure-test whether a longevity asset's biological rationale holds up against what rare disease research already knows about the pathway in question.
Because this field is newer than rare disease drug development, engagements often run iteratively — an initial assessment followed by deeper work on the specific gap that assessment surfaces, rather than a single fixed scope agreed up front.