Ann Bartlett has a great blog posting on Health Centeral that talks about beta cell regeneration as a cure for diabetes. She relies on information from Claresa Levetan, MD - co-founder of CureDM. I believe this is the first of a two part blog. http://www.healthcentral.com/diabetes/c/9993/122845/cell-regenerative
I read that article yesterday. I haven’t followed Curedm since inception like others have as I was focused on a few other research companies I had been following for years. Anyway their therapy sounds identical to Exsulin though its likely a different formulation. Exsulin is supposed to have results of their phase 2 human trials in quarter 1 of 2011. Should be interesting to see what kind of efficacy results they have. They have a great team over there with Dr Rosenberg and Flemming who himself worked for the FDA approving diabetic drugs. I’d like to believe we’re on the road to the beginning of the end but then again I thought the same thing when they started doing islet transplants.
All of this is fascinating and hope inspiring. Check out the CureDM.com site. Dr. Levetan is working on several paths to cure. CureDM is just one. Pancreate and Exsulin are both patented so, although similar - they are both distinguishable. I’m eager for the day any of these therapies actually gets a 510(k). I am a white paper junkie - and definitely an optimist, but I truly believe that with all of these paths under exploration, we may very well see cure if not in time for my generation, definitely for the next.
Donna,
Not sure how old you are but I am getting up there. I thought for sure by now if a real cure wasn’t possible then some form of better treatment would have certainly been here by now. I think the most interesting thing about Curedm is their licensing deal with Sanofi Aventis. Whether this treatment comes to fruition remains to be seen at this point but that fact that big pharma invested $335 million in a drug that hasn’t proven anything in humans yet tells me they realize things may be changing in the near future and they want to be on top of the game. Remember Sanofi sells Lantus which is a blockbuster drug. Let’s hope their goal isn’t to shelve Pancreate so they can continue to cash in on Lantus. I read Curedm wanted to find a Co that they believe wants to get the product to the people and felt Sanofi was that Co though we still don’t know if that is the truth. I am sure Sanofi is eager to hear the results of Exsulins trial being its the same kind of therapy. I think the next few years we should have a more realistic picture if any of these therapies will be there for us. Smart Insulin is at the top of my list of what I believe has a great chance of getting to us sometime down the road.
I have LADA so Im still relatively new to diabetes. I was first misdiagnosed as a Type 2 in 2008 at 45 then correctly diagnosed as a Type 1 a year ago. My college roommate was a T1. I remember her comparing strips to the colors on the side of a bottle. I rememberer only injecting once a day and her moods firing in all directions. There was no talk of pumps then. So in the 25 years since college there have been advances. I get the sense that there is almost a race on now for a cure. Are you familiar with the soldier wounded in the pancreas – they saved the islets and when they got him back to the states transplanted them into him. So although he literally has no pancreas, he is not diabetic. They are onto something. I think they know it. So I think Sanofi and others like them are all determined to be at the front when it does. This is a market that they cannot afford to miss.
Donna I can only hope you are right. Strangely as a kid I wasn’t overly disturbed living with diabetes and didn’t feel so much different then my peers but over the last 15 years its been horrible. I rarely feel good enough to go out and try to enjoy myself so I stay in most of the time. My folks are starting to really age and I am under a lot of stress from that as well. I will be 45 in March so I am going on 36 years Injecting. For sure Diabetes is not my only issue but IMO anyway its clearly my biggest.