SALT LAKE CITY, Sept. 20, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- SymbioCellTech,
LLC , a biotechnology company in Salt Lake City pioneering
stem cell therapy for diabetes and associated auto-immune disorders
and microvascular conditions, today announced the online journal
PLOS ONE published interim data demonstrating ongoing safety and
efficacy of "Neo-Islet" cellular therapy, a technology that
co-aggregates mesenchymal stem cells with culture-expanded
pancreatic islet cells to form three-dimensional cellular clusters,
termed "Neo-Islets." A single dose of Neo-Islets
administered into the abdominal cavity provides durable blood sugar
control without the need for potentially toxic anti-rejection drugs
or encapsulation devices.
Type-1 diabetes is an auto-immune disease in which
the patient's own immune system attacks and destroys the islet
cells of the pancreas, resulting in an inability for the body to
produce insulin. The American Diabetes Association estimates that
over 20% of U.S. medical expenditures can be attributed to the
provision of diabetes care, and the World Health Organization
estimates over 10,000 people die every day from diabetes and its
associated complications. The standard cell therapy for Type 1
diabetes is islet cell transplantation into the liver, however,
this approach is expensive and has serious drawbacks, including the
need for potentially toxic immunosuppressive drugs, and it also
suffers from a lack of available donor pancreas cells to treat the
large number of patients in need of therapy.
In order to avoid the need for immunosuppressive agents, other
biotechnology companies have utilized artificial encapsulation
devices made from foreign material, however, scientists at
SymbioCellTech have employed adult stem cells to block the immune
attack on transplanted pancreatic islet cells, a process they term
"natural encapsulation." By using this approach, rather
than placing an artificial device in the body, the Neo-Islets do
not mount a foreign body reaction that can lead to graft and
therapy failure. Neo-Islets are biologically pure cellular
structures that possess all functions of normal pancreatic islet
cells, while permanently shielding their pancreatic islet cell
component from rejection and immune-mediated destruction.
In the PLOS ONE journal article, Interim report on the
effective intraperitoneal therapy of insulin-dependent diabetes
mellitus in pet dogs using "Neo-Islets," aggregates of adipose stem
and pancreatic islet cells (INAD 012-776), SymbioCellTech
scientists describe the results of implanted Neo-Islets into pet
dogs that had naturally developed auto-immune Type-1 diabetes,
which largely resembles human Type I diabetes. Within a few months,
all treated dogs experienced a reduction in the need for exogenous
insulin without the need for anti-rejection drugs or encapsulation
devices. SCT previously showed the Neo-Islets continue to produce
all physiological hormones that normal healthy pancreatic islets
secrete
(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5689775/).
Based on the strength of these preclinical data, SymbioCellTech
is preparing for an FDA Investigational New Drug (IND) submission
to gain approval to begin testing Neo-Islet therapy in human
clinical trials in patients with Type I diabetes.
In conclusion, SymbioCellTech scientists believe that Neo-Islet
therapy is a durable all-biologic platform that has the potential
to revolutionize the treatment of a Type I Diabetes and other
auto-immune diseases. Currently, SymbioCellTech is focused on
treating insulin-dependent diabetes due to the magnitude of this
global medical problem.
The cited publication can be found here:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0218688
About SymbioCellTech:
SymbioCellTech, LLC is a privately held biotechnology company in
Salt Lake City, Utah, focused on
the development of stem cell therapies for the treatment of
diabetes, microvascular, neurodegenerative, and auto-immune
diseases. The aforementioned results are from an FDA-approved
canine clinical trial testing the safety and efficacy of Neo-Islets
as a functional cure for Type-1 diabetes in pet dogs.
SymbioCellTech is now preparing an FDA IND submission for human
clinical trials for Type-1 diabetes. For more information on
SymbioCellTech, please visit www.symbiocelltech.com.
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SOURCE SymbioCellTech, LLC