Comment by tj-teej

11 hours ago

As a T1D I empathize so strongly with this comment.

There was a promising example in China where Scientists cured a single woman who had T1D. It's n=1, but the first step to a cure is curing someone :)

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03129-3

6 comments

tj-teej

Reply
caseyy  9 hours ago

There is a study running for this in the UK currently [0], and I expect there are worldwide studies running now. This is the time for those interested and eligible to register. But for the rest of us, the treatment seems to be inevitable now. The question is how long until it's proven safe, the red tape is cut through, and it enters the market. I would speculate, unless something catastrophic happens, it should be available within 10 years.

No doubt, the current T1D market players will have created some legal moat, so it might be best for the patients if these companies are the ones to bring the treatment to the market. But we shall see - the current big pharma in diabetes space is heavily invested in drug production rather than implantation procedures. It is a very different business model requiring very different facilities, management, and technology.

[0] https://www.diabetes.org.uk/our-research/get-involved/take-p...

  • eep_social  3 hours ago

    I can’t tell if you’re joking but a cure has been “ten years away” for so long that it is a meme inside the t1d community.

    • caseyy  15 minutes ago

      I know the joke, and I am not joking.

      Once a treatment reaches stage 3 trials, it often becomes generally available within 2 years.

      Stage 3 is expensive for regular drugs but for treatments like these, the cost of one trial may exceed $100M. The fact it’s happening in several places around the world means there is very high confidence that the treatment is working and the race to market has started.

      Most of the times, when people are saying the treatment is 10 years away, they are being very optimistic. Usually it’s after some research shows a new pathway to treatment, usually in mice or other mammals. This is far before human trials and even when human trials start, there is only about 2-7% probability of the treatment making to market. So some mammal responding to treatment in a lab means the chance this treatment will make it through trials for humans is probably in the range of 1%. Saying with certainty it will come in 10 years is a joke.

      But contrast this with a treatment in stage 3 clinical trials, where for diabetes treatments specifically, the success rate is between 65% and 70%. And some real snake oil has gotten to stage 3, which this is not. I think it’s quite likely we will see a treatment soon. 10 years is a pessimistic estimate for this.

      Stage 3 diabetes treatments are so easy to test, too. If they lower HbA1c, then they work. If they are safe enough that for at least one population of diabetes patients they will significantly extend their life, then the treatment is safe enough. And stem cell implants have the hallmarks of all this.

      It’s important to look at the evidence and not be cynical. The treatment can fail onstage 3, but at the current time, it is far more likely to make it to market.

mapt  10 hours ago

Immunology & autoimmune attack is still a wild country where discoveries are being made regularly and only a handful of people have even a rough grasp of the terrain.

sooheon  4 hours ago

Amazing. Since the cells are injected into the abdomen, she essentially grew a new insulin producing pseudo-pancreas in her abs.