ViaCyte gets funding for potential diabetes cure

San Diego company lands $10 million grant from stem cell agency


San Diego-based ViaCyte Inc. received a $10.1 million grant from California's stem cell agency to prepare for clinical trials of a living artificial pancreas for diabetics.

Called Pro-Islet, the implanted device contains encapsulated pancreatic cells. If it works, the artificial pancreas would change the lives of millions of diabetics. They now must monitor their insulin levels closely, and often have to inject themselves with insulin several times a day.

"Essentially, what we're really doing is replacing the pancreas," said Paul Laikind, ViaCyte's chief executive. "It should replace what a normal pancreas should do."

In addition, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine on Thursday granted $9.3 million to Cambridge, Mass.-based Bluebird Bio to develop a treatment for beta-thalassemia, a dangerous form of anemia.

CIRM, as the agency is known, administers $3 billion in funding for stem cell science approved by California voters in 2004 with Proposition 71. The agency rarely funds private companies. Most of its grants go to academic researchers at educational and nonprofit research institutes.

But CIRM's mission also includes helping to speed promising stem cell treatments from laboratory settings to patients. And in the judgment of CIRM's governing board, the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee, these two therapies have progressed enough that they're ready for clinical study.

The ICOC authorized the two grants at its regular public meeting in San Francisco, where the agency is headquartered.

Research paying off

ViaCyte's artificial pancreas is grown from embryonic stem cells. It contains the insulin-producing "islet" or "beta" cells destroyed in Type 1, or insulin-dependent diabetes. The cells are sometimes dysfunctional in Type 2 diabetes, in which the body loses insulin sensitivity. It's intended for use in both types of diabetes when islet function is lost.

The device has eliminated diabetes symptoms in diabetic mice and rats.

ViaCyte's islet cells are encapsulated in an implanted medical device. The cells are separated from the body by a semi-permeable barrier that allows the cells to derive nutrients from the blood and secrete insulin, but shields the cells from the body's immune system. This prevents the body from rejecting the cells, and presumably would eliminate the need for immunosuppressive drugs given to transplant recipients.

Because beta cells do more than secrete insulin, the artificial pancreas could improve the health of diabetics, ViaCyte stated in its application.

"If successful, the therapy will go beyond insulin function, and will perform the full array of normal beta cell functions, including responding in a more physiological manner than manual or mechanized insulin administration," ViaCyte stated.

ViaCyte has previously received CIRM grants, Laikind said, including a $20 million grant in 2009 , when the company was named Novocell.

"That's paid off and we've developed a very exciting regenerative medicine product," Laikind said. "This new grant is meant to help fund the IND-( Investigational New Drug application ) enabling studies that need to be done, as well as the initial clinical studies."

The device is filled with predecessor cells that eventually turn into the islet cells, Laikind said. It's placed under the skin, and blood vessels grow into it to nourish the cells. The cells then develop into mature islet cells.


