This article basically says it all:
“Somebody’s got to do something”
By 2004 Claresa Levetan had pretty well had enough: Enough treating and testing and researching. It was time to just cure diabetes already.
“Diabetes has been my life’s work and yet I don’t personally think we have made that many advances. All the treatments are sort of like a Band-Aid. We are not addressing the fundamental problem,” Levetan said. “Somebody’s got to do something.”
The issue is something called pancreatic islets. When the islets are off, as in diabetes, the body stutters in its ability to produce insulin and thus process sugars.
Fix the islets, cure diabetes. That’s the premise behind Levetan’s CureDM, a Philadelphia-based biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing an eventual cure for a disease that afflicts millions.
Dr. Irl Hirsch, editor in chief of the journal of the American Diabetes Association, Clinical Diabetes, writes of Levetan: “She is perhaps the most creative physician that I have ever met. Her ideas for developing interesting articles, translating new information to others, and getting physicians, patients and their families involved with diabetes to obtain better outcomes are truly inspired.”
Levetan has had a long career as a researcher, serving as clinical professor and director of islet regeneration research at Lankenau Institute for Medical Research; as an associate editor of the journals Clinical Diabetes and Diabetes Forecast, and winning the American College of Endocrinology’s highest distinction in clinical endocrinology award in 2007.
With all these distinctions, why launch a private enterprise? Short answer: Money.
“It is very, very painful to get any [National Institutes of Health] funding. There are years and years of delays,” she said. On the private side, on the other hand, she has been able to leverage her own substantial personal investment to draw $5 million in angel financing.
As might any new entrepreneur, Levetan has taken a media-savvy approach to her work. Search for “meet the diabetes boss” on YouTube and you’ll hear the doctor interviewing a young patient about his experiences with diabetes.
All her professional efforts have been directed toward helping that boy and others like him.
“Growing up, a very close friend of my mom’s had diabetes,” she said. “I saw this vibrant woman going blind, losing her kidneys, going through amputations and finally dying. I have to feel that experience had some impact on me.”
It’s not enough just to see people merely coping with diabetes. She wants this thing over. “It is my dream you would get three or four shots, take my therapy for three months and then be off everything for the rest of your life,” she said. “It may be a little optimistic, but that is my dream.”
She has no illusions. “Life is tough, the business world is tough, it’s tough being a patient, tough being a doctor,” she said. And yet, she says, “I’ve gotten to live my dream, and I couldn’t be happier.”
Read more: “Somebody’s got to do something” | Philadelphia Business Journal
