Years ago, in a conversation with an endocrinologist, I mentioned there was no incentive to cure diabetes, giving the money companies were making from managing it (with testing supplies, insulin, etc.). He replied that the incumbents had no incentive to cure it, but a startup company would. Now it looks like one has—at least in one patient. Sana Biotechnology (SANA 0.00%↑) has developed a one-time treatment that could upend the entire diabetes industry.
How It Works
Type 1 diabetes occurs when the immune system destroys the pancreatic beta cells, which are responsible for producing insulin. While transplants of donor islets—clusters of cells that include beta cells—can restore insulin production, they require scarce donor tissue and lifelong immunosuppressive drugs, which carry serious risks. As a result, insulin remains the only practical treatment for nearly all Type 1 diabetics. Sana has successfully engineered donor-derived islets to evade immune rejection, enabling a Type 1 diabetic to produce his own insulin, without the need for immunosuppressive drugs.
This isn’t just theory. In a clinical trial at Uppsala University in Sweden, Sana’s genetically engineered pancreatic islets were injected into the forearm of a Type 1 diabetic. As the company noted in its annual report, this patient is now more than three months post-treatment, making his own insulin for the first time in 30 years—with no immunosuppressive therapy.
A recent presentation by Sana shows the results of this experiment so far. The C-peptide mentioned there is a biomarker of insulin production.
they can shove their gene therapies up to their asses
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