Culture of pancreatic islet cells and transplantation into patients
Kyoto University Hospital aims for commercialization by 2030
If successful, the burden of ‘lifelong insulin injections’ is relieved
It is expected that a clinical trial will be conducted next year in Japan to treat patients with severe diabetes, type 1 diabetes, by transplanting cells grown from stem cells. If proven effective, it is expected to greatly reduce the burden on patients who have had to take insulin injections for their entire lives.
The Japanese Yomiuri Shimbun reported on the 2nd that, “Kyoto University Hospital plans to conduct a clinical trial next year to transplant pancreatic islet cells to type 1 diabetes patients.” If the trial yields visible results, it will undergo large-scale clinical trials and aims for commercialization around 2030.
The first step of this clinical trial is to create a cluster of pancreatic cells from stem cells of a healthy person. This is done by gathering them to create a square model sheet a few centimeters in size, and then transplanting several of these under the skin of the patient’s abdomen. According to the Yomiuri Shimbun, Kyoto University Hospital plans to conduct a clinical trial for more than a year on three patients aged between 20 and 65 to confirm safety.
Type 1 diabetes is a rare disease that accounts for about 2% of all diabetes cases. Unlike type 2 diabetes, which occurs later in life due to eating habits, it often occurs in childhood. It is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks pancreatic cells that produce insulin, causing them to produce very little or no insulin.
Until now, there was no treatment for this disease other than daily insulin injections into the abdomen several times a day for life. Naturally, it was considered impossible to cure. In Japan, the treatment of ‘pancreatic islet transplantation’, which involves removing pancreatic cells from the pancreas of a deceased person and transplanting them, has been covered by health insurance since 2020, but it is known that less than 10 cases have been performed so far due to a lack of donors.
However, Kyoto University Hospital succeeded in developing a technology to create pancreatic islets from stem cells, and received official approval from the university’s clinical trial review committee last month. In the future, it is also scheduled to undergo a related review by the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA), which is under the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan. The Yomiuri Shimbun expressed its expectations, saying, “In the United States, the pharmaceutical company Vertex conducted a clinical trial to create pancreatic islet cells from stem cells and transplant them, and obtained research results showing that it was effective.”
Tokyo = Correspondent Lee Sang-hoon [email protected]
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2024-09-02 23:56:32