The results of the international experiment, which lasted two years and coordinated for Italy byUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, published in two articles on Diabetes Care, the official organ ofAmerican Diabetes Association
Rome, 5 May 2014 - A new drug promises, for the first time, to normalize the metabolism of patients with type 1 diabetes and to preserve their functioning beta-cells, i.e. the cells in the pancreas responsible for producing insulin. Based on experimental findings, the drug is able not only to optimize the metabolic control of diabetes, reducing hypoglycemia crises and improving glycated hemoglobin levels, but also to reduce the auto-immune reaction that normally destroys the remaining beta-cells, preserving them in this case the functionality.
Developed in the laboratories of the Israeli company Andromeda Biotech, DIAPEP277 - this is the name of the active ingredient produced with a peptide deriving from the sequencing of the human HSP-60 protein - has just passed phase 3 of an international trial lasting two years and coordinated for the 'Italy from the Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases Operational Unit ofUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma. The drug was administered within the first three months of diagnosis to 467 patients aged 16 and over. The results of the study have just been published in two scientific articles on Diabetes Care, official journal of theAmerican Diabetes Association.
“Other studies already conducted in the United States - explains Prof. Paolo Pozzilli, Director of the Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases Operational Unit of the Bio-Medico Campus and among the main authors of the two articles – have shown that patients who retain a residual beta-cell function do not encounter complications such as retinopathy, neuropathy or diabetic nephropathy, even twenty years after the diagnosis of the disease. This active ingredient, by favoring the preservation of beta cells, therefore promises to save the diabetic patient from the complications mentioned". In terms of quality of life, it should be emphasized that the active ingredient is taken only once a month, subcutaneously, and can be carried out by the patient himself, without the need for personnel and health facilities.
Type 1 diabetes: the most frequent among rare pathologies
According to ISTAT 2012 data, processed by the Study Center of the Association of Diabetologists, almost one in three of the over 250 people in our country suffering from type 1 diabetes is under 35 years old. 5 new cases are recorded in our country every year: a figure that has increased since 1993, as has the incidence of the disease, ie the risk of developing this form of diabetes. The mechanisms that cause type 1, the most serious form of diabetes, although not yet fully understood, are in all probability precisely linked to the presence of antibodies directed against the beta-cells of the pancreas. The process is activated following a viral infection in genetically predisposed subjects and often occurs in childhood or adolescence, when the body is no longer able to produce the hormone insulin on its own. The only method of treatment currently is the administration, four times a day, of the hormone or its analogue for blood sugar control.
