Sirtris hopes to market red wine drug by 2013

Sirtris Pharmaceuticals Inc., the small Cambridge company that garnered national press attention for its efforts to use a red wine extract to treat aging-related diseases, hopes to bring its first drug to market in 2012 or 2013, said chief executive Christoph Westphal.

Earlier this week, Sirtris released results from an early clinical trial that found that patients with Type 2 diabetes who took the drug, now called SRT501, showed improvement after 28 days. The treatment is a concentrated form of resveratrol, a substance found in red wine that is believed to stimulate a gene that slows the effects of aging.

Despite the positive results, Westphal cautioned that the drug must be tested in several larger and longer clinical trials over the next few years before it can win approval from the Food and Drug Administration, a hurdle most drugs never jump.

Sirtris, which was founded in 2004 and went public earlier this year, has about 50 employees.
(By Todd Wallack, Globe staff)