ViaCyte

Rare Disease, Type 1 Diabetes, and Heart Function: Breakthroughs for Three CIRM-Funded Studies

/ Yimy Villa / Leave a comment

This past week, there has been a lot of mention of CIRM funded studies that really highlight the importance of the work we support and the different disease areas we make an impact on. This includes important research related to rare disease, Type 1 Diabetes (T1D), and heart function. Below is a summary of the promising CIRM-funded studies released this past week for each one of these areas.

Rare Disease

Comparison of normal (left) and Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease (PMD) brains (right) at age 2. 

Pelizaeus-Merzbacher disease (PMD) is a rare genetic condition affecting boys. It can be fatal before 10 years of age and symptoms of the disease include weakness and breathing difficulties. PMD is caused by a disruption in the formation of myelin, a type of insulation around nerve fibers that allows electrical signals in the brain to travel quickly. Without proper signaling, the brain has difficulty communicating with the rest of the body. Despite knowing what causes PMD, it has been difficult to understand why there is a disruption of myelin formation in the first place.

However, in a CIRM-funded study, Dr. David Rowitch, alongside a team of researchers at UCSF, Stanford, and the University of Cambridge, has been developing potential stem cell therapies to reverse or prevent myelin loss in PMD patients.

Two new studies, of which Dr. Rowitch is the primary author, published in Cell Stem Cell, and Stem Cell Reports, respectively report promising progress in using stem cells derived from patients to identify novel PMD drugs and in efforts to treat the disease by directly transplanting neural stem cells into patients’ brains. 

In a UCSF press release, Dr. Rowitch talks about the implications of his findings, stating that,

“Together these studies advance the field of stem cell medicine by showing how a drug therapy could benefit myelination and also that neural stem cell transplantation directly into the brains of boys with PMD is safe.”

Type 1 Diabetes

Viacyte, a company that is developing a treatment for Type 1 Diabetes (T1D), announced in a press release that the company presented preliminary data from a CIRM-funded clinical trial that shows promising results. T1D is an autoimmune disease in which the body’s own immune system destroys the cells in the pancreas that make insulin, a hormone that enables our bodies to break down sugar in the blood. CIRM has been funding ViaCyte from it’s very earliest days, investing more than $72 million into the company.

The study uses pancreatic precursor cells, which are derived from stem cells, and implants them into patients in an encapsulation device. The preliminary data showed that the implanted cells, when effectively engrafted, are capable of producing circulating C-peptide, a biomarker for insulin, in patients with T1D. Optimization of the procedure needs to be explored further.

“This is encouraging news,” said Dr. Maria Millan, President and CEO of CIRM. “We are very aware of the major biologic and technical challenges of an implantable cell therapy for Type 1 Diabetes, so this early biologic signal in patients is an important step for the Viacyte program.”

Heart Function

Although various genome studies have uncovered over 500 genetic variants linked to heart function, such as irregular heart rhythms and heart rate, it has been unclear exactly how they influence heart function.

In a CIRM-funded study, Dr. Kelly Frazer and her team at UCSD studied this link further by deriving heart cells from induced pluripotent stem cells. These stem cells were in turn derived from skin samples of seven family members. After conducting extensive genome-wide analysis, the team discovered that many of these genetic variations influence heart function because they affect the binding of a protein called NKX2-5.

In a press release by UCSD, Dr. Frazer elaborated on the important role this protein plays by stating that,

“NKX2-5 binds to many different places in the genome near heart genes, so it makes sense that variation in the factor itself or the DNA to which it binds would affect that function. As a result, we are finding that multiple heart-related traits can share a common mechanism — in this case, differential binding of NKX2-5 due to DNA variants.”

The full results of this study were published in Nature Genetics.

Moving a great idea targeting diabetes out of the lab and into a company

/ Kevin McCormack / 3 Comments
Tejal Desai in her lab at UCSF: Photo courtesy Todd Dubnicoff

It’s always gratifying to see research you have helped support go from being an intriguing idea to something with promise to a product that is now the focus of a company. It’s all the more gratifying if the product in question might one day help millions of people battling diabetes.

That’s the case with a small pouch being developed by a company called Encellin. The pouch is the brainchild of Tejal Desai, Ph.D., a professor of bioengineering at UCSF and a CIRM grantee.

Encellin’s encapsulation device

“It’s a cell encapsulation device, so this material can essentially protect beta cells from the immune system while allowing them to function by secreting insulin. We are placing stem cell-derived beta cells into the pouch which is then implanted under the skin. The cells are then able to respond to changes in sugar or glucose levels in the blood by pumping out insulin.  By placing the device in a place that is accessible we can easily remove it if we have to, but also we can recharge it and put in new cells as well.”

While the pouch was developed in Dr. Desai’s lab, the idea to take it from a promising item and try to turn it into a real-world therapy came from one of Dr. Desai’s former students, Crystal Nyitray, Ph.D.

Crystal Nyitray: Photo courtesy FierceBiotech

After getting her PhD, Nyitray went to work for the pharmaceutical giant Sanofi. In an article in FierceBiotech she says that’s where she realized that the pouch she had been working on at UCSF had real potential.

“During that time, I started to realize we really had something, that everything that pharma or biotech was looking at was something we had been developing from the ground up with those specific questions in mind,”

So Dr. Nyitray went to work for QB3, the institute created by UC San Francisco to help startups develop their ideas and get funding. The experience she gained there gave her the confidence to be the co-founder and CEO of Encellin.

Dr. Desai is a scientific advisor to Encellin. She says trying to create a device that contains insulin-secreting cells is not new. Many previous attempts failed because once the device was placed in the body, the immune system responded by creating fibrosis or scarring around it which blocked the ability of the cells to get out.

But she thinks their approach has an advantage over previous attempts.

“This is not a new idea, the idea has been around for 40 or more years but getting it to work is hard. We have a convergence of getting the right cell types and combining that with our knowledge of immunology and then the material science where we can design materials at this scale to get the kind of function that we need.

Dr. Nyitray ““If we can reduce fibrosis, it really helps the cells get nutrients better, survive better and signal more effectively. It’s really critical to their success.”

Dr. Desai says the device is still in the early stages of being tested, but already it’s showing promise.

“We have done testing in animals. Where the company is taking this is now to see if we can take this to larger animals and then ultimately people.”

She says without CIRM’s support none of this would have happened.

“CIRM has been really instrumental in helping us refine the cell technology piece of it, to get really robust cells and also to support the development to push the materials, to understand the biology, to really understand what was happening with the cell material interface. We know we have a lot of challenges ahead, but we are really excited to see if this could work.”

We are excited too. We are looking forward to seeing what Encellin does in the coming years. It could change the lives of millions of people around the world.

No pressure. 

CIRM-supported Type I Diabetes treatment enters clinical trials in Europe

/ Pallavi Penumetcha / Leave a comment

Viacyte images

ViaCyte’s President & CEO, Paul Laikind

ViaCyte, a company that CIRM has supported for many years, has announced international expansion of a clinical trial to test their therapeutic PEC-Direct product in patients with Type I Diabetes.

The first European patient in Brussels was implanted with the PEC-Direct product candidate that, in animal models, is able to form functional beta cells. Patients with Type I Diabetes are unable to control blood glucose levels because their immune system attacks insulin-producing beta cells, which are responsible for regulating blood sugar.

viacyte device

ViaCyte PEC-Direct product candidate

The hope is that PEC-Direct would eliminate the need for patients to take daily doses of insulin, the current treatment standard to prevent the side effects of high blood glucose levels, such as heart disease, kidney damage and nerve damage.

The PEC-Direct product is implanted under the skin. The progenitor cells inside it are designed to mature in to human pancreatic islet cells, including glucose-responsive insulin-secreting beta cells, following implant. These are the cells destroyed by Type 1 Diabetes

In this first phase of the clinical trial, patients are administered a subtherapeutic dose of the drug to ensure that that the implants are able to generate beta cells in the body. The next part of the trial will determine whether or not the formed beta cells are able to produce appropriate levels of insulin and modulate blood glucose levels. A sister trial is currently underway in North America as well. This work is a collaboration between ViaCyte and The Center for Beta Cell Therapy in Diabetes.

Separately, ViaCyte has also made important headway to make stem cells more effective in different types of diseases by programming them to evade the immune system. This progress has been cited by the Global Human Embryonic Stem Cells Market report as a key development in growing the overall global stem cell market.

CIRM is proud to be a supporter of companies such as ViaCyte that are conducting groundbreaking research to make stem cell therapy an effective and realistic treatment option for many different diseases.

 

 

How CIRM support helped a promising approach to type 1 diabetes get vital financial backing

/ Kevin McCormack / 1 Comment

Death-Vallery-011

The “Valley of Death” sounds like a scary place from “Lord of the Rings” or “Game of Thrones” that our heroes have to navigate to reach safety. The reality is not that different. It’s the space that young companies have to navigate from having a good idea to getting financial backing, so they can move their projects towards the clinic. At the other side of the Valley are deep-pocket investors, waiting to see what makes it through before deciding if they want to support them.

It’s a Catch 22 situation. Without financing companies can’t make it through the Valley; but they need to get through before the folks with money will considering investing. As a result many companies languish or even fail to make it through the Valley of Death. Without that financial support promising therapies are lost before they even get a chance to show their potential.

CIRM was created, in part, to help those great ideas get through the Valley. That’s why it is so gratifying to hear the news today from ViaCyte – that is developing a promising approach to treating type 1 diabetes – that they have secured $80 million in additional financing.

The money comes from Bain Capital Life Sciences, TPG and RA Capital Management and several other investors. It’s important because it is a kind of vote of confidence in ViaCyte, suggesting these deep-pocket investors believe the company’s approach has real potential.

In a news release Adam Koppel, a Managing Director at Bain, said:

“ViaCyte is the clear leader in beta cell replacement, and we are excited about the lasting impact that it’s stem cell-derived therapies can potentially have on improving treatment and quality of life for people living with insulin-requiring diabetes. We look forward to partnering with ViaCyte’s management team to accelerate the development of ViaCyte’s transformative cell therapies to help patients.”

CIRM has been a big supporter of ViaCyte for several years, investing more than $70 million to help them develop a cell therapy that can be implanted under the skin that is capable of delivering insulin to people with type 1 diabetes when needed. The fact that these investors are now stepping up to help it progress suggests we are not alone in thinking this project has tremendous promise.

But ViaCyte is far from the only company that has benefitted from CIRM’s early and consistent support. This year alone CIRM-funded companies have raised more than $1.0 billion in funding from outside investors; a clear sign of validation not just for the companies and their therapies, but also for CIRM and its judgement.

This includes:

  • Humacyte raising $225 million for its program to help people battling kidney failure
  • Forty Seven Inc. raising $113 million from an Initial Public Offering for its programs targeting different forms of cancer
  • Nohla Therapeutics raising $56 million for its program treating acute myeloid leukemia

We have shown there is a path through the Valley of Death. We are hoping to lead many more companies through that in the coming years, so they can bring their therapies to people who really need them, the patients.

 

 

 

New partnership to make CIRM supported treatment for type 1 diabetes even better

/ Kevin McCormack / Leave a comment

 

ViaCyte images

ViaCyte’s PEC-Direct device. Image courtesy of ViaCyte

ViaCyte, a regenerative medicine company long backed by CIRM, announced a partnership with CRISPR Therapeutics to increase the number of people with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) who could benefit from their PEC-Direct therapeutic implant.

Last year, CIRM granted ViaCyte $20 million to facilitate development of PEC-Direct, a device that both transplants pancreatic progenitor stem cells (the immature version of  islet cells, the insulin-producing cells that are destroyed in TID), and allows those cells to connect to the patient’s bloodstream to help them function more like normal islet cells. This treatment, currently in clinical trials, was initially targeted towards high risk patients because of the need to treat them with immunosuppressive therapy, to ensure that the patient’s immune system does not attack the implanted cells.

ViaCyte’s partnership with CRISPR Therapeutics aims to eliminate the need for immunosuppressive therapy by engineering the transplanted stem cells to evade the immune system prior to implanting in the patient. CRISPR Therapeutics is already using this gene editing approach in CAR-T based cancer therapies and has developed an important knowledge base in “immune-evasive gene editing.” Paul Laikind Ph.D., CEO and President of ViaCyte explains the importance of this partnership in a news release:

“Creating an immune-evasive gene-edited version of our technology would enable us to address a larger patient population than we could with a product requiring immunosuppression. CRISPR Therapeutics is the ideal partner for this program given their leading gene editing technology and expertise and focus on immune-evasive editing.”

Samarth Kulkarni, Ph.D., and CEO of CRISPR Therapeutics adds:

“We believe the combination of regenerative medicine and gene editing has the potential to offer durable, curative therapies to patients in many different diseases, including common chronic disorders like insulin-requiring diabetes.”

The hope is that this new approach could make this treatment available to everyone with T1D. The benefits of such a treatment option would be considerable as TID affects around 1.25 million Americans, and can lead to severe health complications such as kidney damage and heart disease. The initial goals of this collaboration are to develop a stem cell line that successfully evades the immune system, followed by developing a product that can be used in patients.

 

CIRM-Funded Research Makes Multiple Headlines this Week

/ Karen Ring / Leave a comment

When it rains it pours.

This week, multiple CIRM-funded studies appeared in the news, highlighting the exciting progress our Agency is making towards funding innovative stem cell research and promoting the development of promising stem cell therapies for patients.

Below are highlights.

Fate Therapeutics Partners with UC San Diego to Develop Cancer Immunotherapy

Last week, Dr. Dan Kaufman and his team at UC San Diego, received a $5.15 million therapeutic translational research award from CIRM to advance the clinical development of a stem cell-derived immunotherapy for acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), a rare form of blood cancer.

Today, it was announced that the UCSD team is entering into a research collaboration with a San Diego biopharmaceutical company Fate Therapeutics to develop a related immunotherapy for blood cancers. The therapy consists of immune cells called chimeric antigen receptor-targeted natural killer (CAR NK) cells that can target tumor cells and stop their growth. Fate Therapeutics has developed an induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) platform to develop and optimize CAR NK cell therapies targeting various cancers.

According to an article by GenBio, this new partnership is already bearing fruit.

“In preclinical studies using an ovarian cancer xenograft model, Dr. Kaufman and Fate Therapeutics had shown that a single dose of CAR-targeted NK cells derived from iPSCs engineered with the CAR construct significantly inhibited tumor growth and increased survival compared to NK cells containing a CAR construct commonly used for T-cell immunotherapy.”

 

City of Hope Brain Cancer Trial Featured as a Key Trial to Watch in 2018

Xconomy posted a series this week forecasting Key Clinical Data to look out for next year. Today’s part two of the series mentioned a recent CIRM-funded trial for glioblastoma, an aggressive, deadly brain cancer.

Christine Brown and her team at the City of Hope are developing a CAR-T cell therapy that programs a patient’s own immune cells to specifically target and kill cancer cells, including cancer stem cells, in the brain. You can read more about this therapy and the Phase 1 trial on our website.

Alex Lash, Xconomy’s National Biotech Editor, argued that good results for this trial would be a “huge step forward for CAR-T”.

Alex Lash

“While CAR-T has proven its mettle in certain blood cancers, one of the biggest medical questions in biotech is whether the killer cells can also eat up solid tumors, which make up the majority of cancer cases. Glioblastoma—an aggressive and usually incurable brain cancer—is a doozy of a solid tumor.”

ViaCyte Receives Innovative New Product Award for Type 1 Diabetes

Last week, San Diego-based ViaCyte was awarded the “Most Innovative New Product Award” by CONNECT, a start-up accelerator focused on innovation, for its PEC-Direct product candidate. The product is a cell-based therapy that’s currently being tested in a CIRM-funded clinical trial for patients with high-risk type 1 diabetes.

In a company news release published today, ViaCyte’s CEO Paul Laikind commented on what the award signifies,

Paul Laikind

“This award acknowledges how ViaCyte has continually broken new ground in stem cell research, medical device engineering, and cell therapy scaling and manufacturing. With breakthrough technology, clinical stage product candidates, an extensive intellectual property estate, and a strong and dedicated team, ViaCyte has all the pieces to advance a transformative new life-saving approach that could help hundreds of thousands of people with high-risk type 1 diabetes around the world.”

Stem Cell Stories that Caught Our Eye: New law to protect consumers; using skin to monitor blood sugar; and a win for the good guys

/ Kevin McCormack / Leave a comment

Hernendez

State Senator Ed Hernandez

New law targets stem cell clinics that offer therapies not approved by the FDA

For some time now CIRM and others around California have been warning consumers about the risks involved in going to clinics that offer stem cell therapies that have not been tested in a clinical trial or approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in patients.

Now a new California law, authored by State Senator Ed Hernandez (D-West Covina) attempts to address that issue. It will require medical clinics whose stem cell treatments are not FDA approved, to post notices and provide handouts to patients warning them about the potential risk.

In a news release Sen. Hernandez said he hopes the new law, SB 512, will protect consumers from early-stage, unproven experimental therapies:

“There are currently over 100 medical offices in California providing non-FDA approved stem cell treatments. Patients spend thousands of dollars on these treatments, but are totally unaware of potential risks and dangerous side effects.”

Sen. Hernandez’s staffer Bao-Ngoc Nguyen crafted the bill, with help from CIRM Board Vice Chair Sen. Art Torres, Geoff Lomax and UC Davis researcher Paul Knoepfler, to ensure it targeted only clinics offering non-FDA approved therapies and not those offering FDA-sanctioned clinical trials.

For example the bill would not affect CIRM’s Alpha Stem Cell Clinic Network because all the therapies offered there have been given the green light by the FDA to work with patients.

Blood_Glucose_Testing 

Using your own skin as a blood glucose monitor

One of the many things that people with diabetes hate is the constant need to monitor their blood sugar level. Usually that involves a finger prick to get a drop of blood. It’s simple but not much fun. Attempts to develop non-invasive monitors have been tried but with limited success.

Now researchers at the University of Chicago have come up with another alternative, using the person’s own skin to measure their blood glucose level.

Xiaoyang Wu and his team accomplished this feat in mice by first creating new skin from stem cells. Then, using the gene-editing tool CRISPR, they added in a protein that sticks to sugar molecules and another protein that acts as a fluorescent marker. The hope was that the when the protein sticks to sugar in the blood it would change shape and emit fluorescence which could indicate if blood glucose levels were too high, too low, or just right.

The team then grafted the skin cells back onto the mouse. When those mice were left hungry for a while then given a big dose of sugar, the skin “sensors” reacted within 30 seconds.

The researchers say they are now exploring ways that their findings, published on the website bioRxiv, could be duplicated in people.

While they are doing that, we are supporting ViaCytes attempt to develop a device that doesn’t just monitor blood sugar levels but also delivers insulin when needed. You can read about our recent award to ViaCyte here.

Deepak

Dr. Deepak Srivastava

Stem Cell Champion, CIRM grantee, and all-round-nice guy named President of Gladstone Institutes

I don’t think it would shock anyone to know that there are a few prima donnas in the world of stem cell research. Happily, Dr. Deepak Srivastava is not one of them, which makes it such a delight to hear that he has been appointed as the next President of the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco.

Deepak is a gifted scientist – which is why we have funded his work – a terrific communicator and a really lovely fella; straight forward and down to earth.

In a news release announcing his appointment – his term starts January 1 next year – Deepak said he is honored to succeed the current President, Sandy Williams:

“I joined Gladstone in 2005 because of its unique ability to leverage diverse basic science approaches through teams of scientists focused on achieving scientific breakthroughs for mankind’s most devastating diseases. I look forward to continue shaping this innovative approach to overcome human disease.”

We wish him great success in his new role.

 

 

 

CIRM-Funded Clinical Trials Targeting the Heart, Pancreas, and Kidneys

/ Karen Ring / Leave a comment

This blog is part of our Month of CIRM series, which features our Agency’s progress towards achieving our mission to accelerate stem cell treatments to patients with unmet medical needs.

This week, we’re highlighting CIRM-funded clinical trials to address the growing interest in our rapidly expanding clinical portfolio. Today we are featuring trials in our organ systems portfolio, specifically focusing on diseases of the heart/vasculature system, the pancreas and the kidneys.

CIRM has funded a total of nine trials targeting these disease areas, and eight of these trials are currently active. Check out the infographic below for a list of our currently active trials.

For more details about all CIRM-funded clinical trials, visit our clinical trials page and read our clinical trials brochure which provides brief overviews of each trial.

CIRM Board Appoints Dr. Maria Millan as President and CEO

/ Karen Ring / 1 Comment

Dr. Maria Millan, President and CEO of CIRM, at the September Board meeting. (Todd Dubnicoff, CIRM)

Yesterday was a big day for CIRM. Our governing Board convened for its September ICOC meeting and appointed Dr. Maria Millan as our new President and CEO. Dr. Millan has been serving as the Interim President/CEO since July, replacing former President Dr. Randal Mills.

Dr. Millan has been at CIRM since 2012 and was instrumental in the development of CIRM’s infrastructure programs including the Alpha Stem Cell Clinics Network and the agency’s Strategic Plan, a five-year plan that lays out our agency’s goals through 2020. Previously, Dr. Millan was the Vice President of Therapeutics at CIRM, helping the agency fund 23 new clinical trials since the beginning of 2016.

The Board vote to appoint Dr. Millan as President and CEO was unanimous and enthusiastic. Chairman of the Board, Jonathan Thomas, shared the Board’s sentiments when he said,

“Dr. Millan is absolutely the right person for this position. Having seen Dr. Millan as the Interim CEO of CIRM for three months and how she has operated in that position, I am even more enthusiastic than I was before. I am grateful that we have someone of Maria’s caliber to lead our Agency.”

Dr. Millan has pursued a career devoted to helping patients. Before working at CIRM, she was an organ transplant surgeon and researcher and served as an Associate Professor of Surgery and Director of the Pediatric Organ Transplant Program at Stanford University. Dr. Millan was also the Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at StemCells, Inc.

In her permanent role as President, Dr. Millan is determined to keep CIRM on track to achieve the goals outlined in our strategic plan and to achieve its mission to accelerate treatments to patients with unmet needs. She commented in a CIRM press release,

“I joined the CIRM team because I wanted to make a difference in the lives of patients. They are the reason why CIRM exists and why we fund stem cell research. I am humbled and very honored to be CIRM’s President and look forward to further implementing our agency’s Strategic Plan in the coming years.”

The Board also voted to fund two new Alpha Stem Cell Clinics at UC Davis and UC San Francisco and five new clinical trials. Three of the clinical awards went to projects targeting cancer.

The City of Hope received $12.8 million to fund a Phase 1 trial targeting malignant gliomas (an aggressive brain cancer) using CAR-T cell therapy. Forty Seven Inc. received $5 million for a Phase 1b clinical trial treating acute myeloid leukemia. And Nohla Therapeutics received $6.9 million for a Phase 2 trial testing a hematopoietic stem cell and progenitor cell therapy to help patients suffering from neutropenia, a condition that leaves people susceptible to deadly infections, after receiving chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukemia.

The other two trials target diabetes and end stage kidney failure. ViaCyte, Inc. was awarded $20 million to fund a Phase 1/2 clinical trial to test its PEC-Direct islet cell replacement therapy for high-risk type 1 diabetes. Humacyte Inc. received $14.1 million to fund a Phase 3 trial that is comparing the performance of its acellular bioengineered vessel with the current standard of dialysis treatment for kidney disease patients.

The Board also awarded $5.2 million to Stanford Medicine for a late stage preclinical project that will use CRISPR gene editing technology to correct the sickle cell disease mutation in blood-forming stem cells to treat patients with sickle cell disease. This award was particularly well timed as September is Sickle Cell Awareness month.

The Stanford team, led by Dr. Matthew Porteus, hopes to complete the final experiments required for them to file an Investigational New Drug (IND) application with the FDA so they can be approved to start a clinical trial hopefully sometime in 2018. You can read more about Dr. Porteus’ work here and you can read our past blogs featuring Sickle Cell Awareness here and here.

With the Board’s vote yesterday, CIRM’s clinical trial count rises to 40 funded trials since its inception. 23 of these trials were funded after the launch of our Strategic Plan bringing us close to the half way point of funding 50 new clinical trials by 2020. With more “shots-on-goal” CIRM hopes to increase the chances that one of these trials will lead to an FDA-approved therapy for patients.

Related Links:

ViaCyte treats first patients in PEC-Direct stem cell trial for type 1 diabetes

/ Karen Ring / 1 Comment

Today, ViaCyte shared an update on its latest clinical trial for type 1 diabetes (T1D). The company is based in San Diego and is developing two stem cell-based products that attempt to replace the pancreatic beta islet cells that are attacked by the immune system of patients with T1D.

Their first product, called VC-01 or PEC-Encap, is an implantable device containing embryonic stem cells that develop into pancreatic progenitor cells, which are precursors to the islet cells destroyed by T1D. The hope is that when this device is transplanted under a patient’s skin, the progenitor cells will develop into mature insulin-secreting cells that can properly regulate the glucose levels in a patient’s blood. Because the cells are encapsulated in a protective semi-permeable membrane, hormones and nutrients can pass in and out of the device, but the implanted cells are guarded against the patient’s immune system. VC-01 is currently being tested in a Phase 1 clinical trial that is funded CIRM.

ViaCyte now has a second product called VC-02, or PEC-Direct, that also transplants pancreatic progenitors but in a device that allows a patient’s blood vessels to make direct contact with the implanted cells. This “direct vascularization” approach is being tested in patients that are at high risk for severe complications associated with T1D including hypoglycemia unawareness – a condition where patients fail to recognize when their blood glucose level drops to dangerously low levels because the typical symptoms of hypoglycemia fail to appear.

ViaCyte’s PEC-Direct device allows a patient’s blood vessels to integrate and make contact with the transplanted beta cells.

In May, ViaCyte announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved their Investigational New Drug (IND) application for PEC-Direct, which gave the company the green light to proceed with a Phase 1 safety trial to test the treatment in patients. ViaCyte’s pre-IND work on PEC-Direct was supported in part by a late stage preclinical grant from CIRM.

Today, the ViaCyte announced in a press release that it has treated its first patients with PEC-Direct in a Phase 1/2 trial at the University of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta and at the UCSD Alpha Stem Cell Clinic in San Diego, California.

“The first cohort of type 1 diabetes patients is receiving multiple small-format cell-filled devices called sentinels in order to evaluate safety and implant viability.  These sentinel units will be removed at specific time points and examined histologically to provide early insight into the progression of engraftment and maturation into pancreatic islet cells including insulin-producing beta cells.”

The news release also revealed plans for enrollment of a larger cohort of patients by the end of 2017.

“A second cohort of up to 40 patients is expected to begin enrolling later this year to evaluate both safety and efficacy.  The primary efficacy measurement in the trial will be the clinically relevant production of insulin, as measured by the insulin biomarker C-peptide, in a patient population that has little to no ability to produce endogenous insulin at the time of enrollment.  Other important endpoints will be evaluated including injectable insulin usage and the incidence of hypoglycemic events.  ViaCyte’s goal is to demonstrate early evidence of efficacy in the first half of 2018 and definitive efficacy 6 to 12 months later.”

President and CEO of ViaCyte, Dr. Paul Laikind, is hopeful that PEC-Direct will give patients with high-risk T1D a better treatment option than what is currently available.

ViaCyte’s President & CEO, Paul Laikind

“There are limited treatment options for patients with high-risk type 1 diabetes to manage life-threatening hypoglycemic episodes. We believe that the PEC-Direct product candidate has the potential to transform the lives of these patients and we are excited to move closer to that goal with the initiation of clinical evaluation announced today.  This also represents a step towards a broader application of the technology.  We remain fully committed to developing a functional cure for all patients with insulin-requiring diabetes.  To that end, we are hard at work on next-generation approaches as well, and expect the work with PEC-Direct to further advance our knowledge and drive progress.”

Related links: