More evidence of big pharma’s interest in type 1 diabetes (T1D) arose as Eli Lilly and Co. disclosed its plan to buy encapsulated-cell-therapy collaborator Sigilon Therapeutics Inc., bringing aboard SIG-002, the early-stage drug on which the pair has been working since 2018. The news blasted upward shares of Cambridge, Mass.-based Sigilon (NASDAQ:SGTX), which closed June 29 at $21.15, up $17.24, or 441%.
Regulatory T-cell specialist Quell Therapeutics Ltd. has sealed a potential $2 billion agreement under which Astrazeneca plc is taking rights to two autologous Treg cell therapies for treating inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and type 1 diabetes. Quell will receive $85 million up front, the majority of which is in cash, with a modest (undisclosed) equity investment. Reaching the $2 billion headline figure will involve a series of development and commercial milestones and royalties on sales.
Diogenx SAS raised €27.5 million (US$30.4 million) in a series A round to move a novel therapy for type 1 diabetes into clinical development. The Marseille, France-based company is building on the research of co-founder Patrick Collombat, an expert in beta-cell regeneration, who is based at the Insitute of Biology Valrose and the University Côte d’Azur, in Nice. Its lead drug candidate comprises a recombinant R-spondin protein, which acts on the Wnt/beta-catenin signal pathway to boost replication of endogenous functioning beta-cells.
Lygenesis Inc. and Imagine Pharma Inc. have entered into a joint research collaboration to develop novel cell therapies for patients with type 1 diabetes. The collaboration will leverage Imagine Pharma’s type 1 diabetes activated islet progenitor cells (T1D AIPCs) and Lygenesis’ allogeneic cell therapy platform to develop therapies for type 1 diabetes.
It is approved as a food additive. But it now appears that sucralose can dampen T-cell-mediated immune responses, suggesting it could be a means of treating T-cell-dependent autoimmune disorders. While stressing (repeatedly) that they were studying intakes well above normal, at high but achievable doses sucralose has an unexpected effect on T-cell responses and functions in autoimmune, infection and tumor models, researchers at The Francis Crick Institute, London, reported in Nature March 15, 2023.
Shares of Provention Bio Inc. (NASDAQ:PRVB) closed March 13 at $24.10, up $17.40, or 259%, after Wall Street learned that collaborator Sanofi SA intends to acquire the firm for $25 per share in cash, which works out to an equity value of about $2.9 billion. The transaction brings Paris-based Sanofi the type 1 diabetes (T1D) therapy Tzield (teplizumab-mzwv), approved by the U.S. FDA in 2022 as the first and only therapy to delay the onset of stage 3 disease in adults and in pediatric patients ages 8 and older with T1D that has reached stage 2.
Genprex Inc. has entered into a license agreement with the University of Pittsburgh designed to strengthen its diabetes program. The agreement grants Genprex a worldwide, exclusive license to certain patent applications and related technology and a worldwide, nonexclusive license to use certain related know-how, all related to modulating autoimmunity in type 1 diabetes by using gene therapy.
Provention Bio Inc. scored approval from the U.S. FDA of the BLA for Tzield (teplizumab-mzwv), an intravenously given, anti-CD3-directed antibody, as the first and only immunomodulatory treatment to delay the onset of stage 3 type 1 diabetes (T1D) in adult and pediatric patients ages 8 and older with stage 2 T1D.
It’s been a rough year at Macrogenics Inc., but times may be changing. Having terminated a phase II study due to fatalities, dropped 15% of its workforce and closed research and manufacturing sites in the past year, the company has taken the helping hand of Gilead Sciences Inc. The pair have agreed to develop the bispecific MGD-024, which has a CD3 component for minimizing cytokine release syndrome, as an oncology candidate along with two additional bispecific research programs, a potential treatment for certain blood cancers, including acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplastic syndromes.
