Sana Biotechnology Inc. has outlined the status of its pipeline following a portfolio prioritization. The company remains on track to file an IND this year for SC-291, the company's HIP-modified, CD19-targeted allogeneic chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T therapy, with initial clinical data expected next year.
Gilead Sciences Inc. has synthesized carboxy-benzimidazoles acting as glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor (GLP-1R) agonists reported to be useful for the treatment of arthritis, diabetes, eating disorders, macular degeneration, myocardial infarction, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, sleep apnea and Parkinson's disease, among others.
Researchers from Rigel Pharmaceuticals Inc. have reported the discovery of indirect activators of AMPK as potential candidates for the treatment of type 2 diabetes.
Medtronic plc’s new Extended infusion set shows the advantages of tending to details. Tubing doesn’t get much respect, but the changes Medtronic made to its set will substantially reduce the burden of disease management for patients with diabetes who use insulin pumps. The Medtronic Extended infusion set can be used for up to seven days, more than doubling the time between changes. The changes also sharply reduced insulin loss, resulting in a 25% reduction in waste of the increasingly expensive medication.
Two Medicare administrative contractors are examining a request for expanded Medicare coverage of continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) that would drop the requirement that patients routinely administer insulin at least three times a day. The requestors, Alameda, Calif.-based Abbott Diabetes Care Inc., and a group of stakeholders including the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), assert that such a change is not only endorsed by two medical societies, but is also supported by clinical evidence, and the net effect for industry may be to significantly accelerate sales of these devices.
Cell death induced by hypoxia is quite a common problem during pancreatic islet transplantation and is caused by insufficient revascularization of the grafts. It has been reported that the loss of NLR family pyrin domain containing 3 (NLRP3) in pancreatic islet cells protects them from hypoxia-induced cell death, so it was hypothesized that blockade of NLRP3 would improve pancreatic islet transplantation.
The individual and population-level health impact of type 2 diabetes is well documented, a fact which recently drove the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) to ask whether screening among asymptomatic individuals aged younger than 18 years would be worth the effort. The answer is that the task force simply does not know, simply because the agency’s literature search turned up no studies that prospectively evaluated the benefits of screening in this population, signaling a missed opportunity for drug and device makers to intervene in this massively costly disease.
Novo Nordisk A/S received marketing approval from China’s NMPA for its smart insulin pen Novopen Six that automatically collects and stores the date and time of injections and the number of units of insulin that users take.
Les Laboratoires Servier SAS has divulged new glucagon-like peptide (GLP-1) receptor agonists reported to be useful for the treatment of obesity and diabetes.
