DIABECELL now has the money pledged to the final participants in their phase II trial. Two international charitable foundations, New Zealand-based Cure Kids and U.S.-based Children with Diabetes Foundation, have each pledged to provide US $140,000 to fund the final two patients in a Phase II clinical trial in New Zealand that may well transform the treatment of Type 1 diabetes.
The trial is testing DIABECELL as a treatment for Type 1 diabetes and has been developed by Living Cell Technologies, an Australian company domiciled in New Zealand. DIABECELL is designed to help normalize the lives of people with unstable Type 1 diabetes, especially those suffering from life-threatening episodes of unaware hypoglycemia. Tiny DIABECELL micro-spheres containing live islet cells are implanted into a patient's abdomen using a simple laparoscopic procedure.
Once implanted, DIABECELL works by self-regulating and efficiently secreting insulin in response to the patient's changing glucose levels. DIABECELL islets are protected from the body's immune response by LCT's breakthrough proprietary encapsulation technology, so DIABECELL patients do not require any immunosuppression.
To date, twelve of the approved New Zealand patients with unstable insulin dependent diabetes have received this ground-breaking treatment, which has been shown to safely improve diabetes management and reduce or eliminate episodes of life-threatening low blood glucose levels. The dramatic results to date show DIABECELL’s ability to ameliorate this serious complication of diabetes, known as hypoglycemic unawareness, is an important potential benefit to patients.
Read the full press release here from February 16, 2011.
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