Viacyte

A big deal for type 1 diabetes

/ Kevin McCormack / Leave a comment

It’s not often you get excited talking about company mergers, but a deal announced today is something worth getting excited about, particularly if you have type 1 diabetes (T1D).  

Today Vertex announced it was buying ViaCyte for $320 million in cash. Why is that important? Because both companies are working on developing stem cell therapies for people with type 1 diabetes, so combining the two may help speed up that work. 

Now, in the interests of full disclosure the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) has been supporting ViaCyte’s work for some years now, investing in nine different research programs, including two clinical trials with the company.  

ViaCyte has been developing an implantable device which contains pancreatic endoderm cells that mature over a few months and turn into insulin-producing pancreatic islet cells, the kind destroyed by T1D.  

Vertex is taking a slightly different approach, manufacturing synthetic islet cells which are then injected into the patient.  

In a news release both companies said the deal – which is slated to be completed later this year – would help speed up that work.:  

“VX-880 has successfully demonstrated clinical proof of concept in T1D, and the acquisition of ViaCyte will accelerate our goal of transforming, if not curing T1D by expanding our capabilities and bringing additional tools, technologies and assets to our current stem cell-based programs,” said Reshma Kewalramani, M.D., Chief Executive Officer and President of Vertex.  

“ViaCyte’s commitment to finding a functional cure for T1D is shared by Vertex, and this acquisition will allow Vertex to deploy ViaCyte’s tools, technologies and assets toward the development of Vertex’s multiple cell replacement therapy approaches designed to reduce the burden of millions of people living with T1D worldwide,” said Michael Yang, President and Chief Executive Officer of ViaCyte.  

Dr. Maria Millan, CIRM’s President and CEO, says it’s always gratifying to see a project we have supported continue to progress.

“We are delighted at the news that Vertex and ViaCyte are combining their experience, expertise and resources in working to develop a stem cell therapy for type 1 diabetes. At CIRM we pride ourselves on helping de-risk projects, giving promising research the support it needs to attract outside investment. We have been big supporters of ViaCyte’s work over many years. That support has been vital in helping lead to this deal. We believe this is good news for both companies and hope it will ultimately be even better news for everyone with type 1 diabetes.”

First Patient Dosed in Phase 1 Clinical Trial for T1D

/ Katie Sharify / 4 Comments

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There’s some good news for a company and a therapeutic approach that CIRM has been supporting for many years.

In September 2018, CRISPR Theraputics and ViaCyte entered a partnership to discover, develop and market gene-edited stem cell-derived therapies to treat type 1 diabetes (T1D). Today, they may stand one step closer to their goal. 

Last week the companies jointly announced that they have dosed the first subject in the Phase 1 clinical trial of VCTX210 for the treatment of T1D. VCTX210 is an investigational stem cell-based therapy. It was developed combining CRISPR’s gene-editing technology with ViaCyte’s stem cell expertise to generate pancreatic beta cells that can evade the immune system.

ViaCyte, a regenerative medicine company long backed by CIRM, has developed an implantable device which contains pancreatic endoderm cells that mature over a few months and turn into insulin-producing pancreatic islet cells, the kind destroyed by T1D. 

ViaCyte’s implantable stem cell pouch

Using CRISPR technology, the genetic code of the implanted cells is modified to create beta cells that avoid all recognition by the immune system. This collaboration aims to eliminate the requirement of patients taking daily immunosuppressants to stop the immune system from attacking the implanted cells. 

The first phase of the VCTX210 clinical trial will assess the safety, tolerability, and immune evasion in patients with T1D. 

“We are excited to work with CRISPR Therapeutics and ViaCyte to carry out this historic, first-in-human transplant of gene-edited, stem cell-derived pancreatic cells for the treatment of diabetes designed to eliminate the need for immune suppression,” said James Shapiro, a clinical investigator in the trial. “If this approach is successful, it will be a transformative treatment for patients with all insulin-requiring forms of diabetes.”

CIRM has been a big investor in ViaCyte’s work for many years and has invested more than $72 million in nine different awards.  

Producing insulin for people who can’t

/ Kevin McCormack / 1 Comment

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ViaCyte’s implantable stem cell pouch

One of the huge advantages of a stem cell agency like CIRM (not that there is anything out there quite like us, but anyway) is our ability to support projects as they progress from a great idea to a therapy actually being tested in people.

Exhibit A on that front came via a news release from ViaCyte, a company that is developing a new approach to helping people with severe Type 1 Diabetes (T1D).

Unlike type 2 diabetes, which is largely diet & lifestyle related and develops over time, T1D is an autoimmune condition where the person’s immune system attacks and destroys the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. Without those cells and insulin the body is not able to regulate blood sugar levels and that can lead to damage to the heart, kidneys, eyes and nerves. In severe cases it can be fatal.

ViaCyte (which has been supported with more than $72 million from CIRM) has developed a pouch that can be implanted under the skin in the back. This pouch contains stem cells that over a period of a few months turn into insulin-producing pancreatic islet cells, the kind destroyed by T1D. The goal is for these cells to monitor blood flow and when they detect blood sugar or glucose levels are high, can secrete insulin to restore them to a safe level.

They tested this approach in 15 patients in a Phase 1 clinical trial in Canada. Their findings, published in the journals Cell Stem Cell and Cell Reports Medicine, show that six months after implantation, the cells had turned into insulin-producing islet cells. They also showed a rise in C-peptide levels after patients ate a meal. C-peptides are a sign your body is producing insulin so the rise in that number was a good indication the implanted cells were boosting insulin production.

As Dr. James Shapiro, the Chair of Canada Research and one of the lead authors of the study says, that’s no small achievement: “The data from these papers represent a significant scientific advance. It is the first reported evidence that differentiated stem cells implanted in patients can generate meal-regulated insulin secretion, offering real hope for the incredible potential of this treatment.”

And that wasn’t all. The researchers say that patients spent 13 percent more time in the target range for blood sugar levels than before the treatment, and some were even able to reduce the amount of insulin they injected.

Now this is only a Phase 1 clinical trial so the goal was to test the safety of the pouch, called PEC-Direct (VC-02), to see if the body would tolerate it being implanted and to see if it is effective. The beauty of this method is that the device is implanted under the skin so it can be removed easily if any problems emerge. So far none have.

Ultimately the hope is that this approach will help patients with T1D better regulate their blood sugar levels, improve their health outcomes, and one day even achieve independence from the burden of daily insulin injections.

Type 1 diabetes therapy gets go-ahead for clinical trial

/ Kevin McCormack / 1 Comment
ViaCyte’s implantable cell-based therapy for type 1 diabetes

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Taking even the most promising therapy and moving it out of the lab and into people is an incredibly complex process and usually requires a great team. Now, two great teams have paired up to do just that with a therapy for type 1 diabetes (T1D). ViaCyte and CRISPR Therapeutics have put their heads together and developed an approach that has just been given clearance by Health Canada to start a clinical trial.

Regular readers of this blog know that CIRM has been a big supporter of ViaCyte for many years, investing more than $72 million in nine different awards. They have developed 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.

One of the challenges in earlier testing was developing a cell-based therapy that could evade the immune system, so that people didn’t need to have their immune system suppressed to prevent it attacking and destroying the cells. This particular implantable version sprang out of an early stage award we made to ViaCyte (DISC2-10591). ViaCyte and CRISPR Therapeutics helped with the design of the therapeutic called VCTX210.

In a news release, Michael Yang, the President and CEO of ViaCyte, said getting approval for the trial was a major milestone: “Being first into the clinic with a gene-edited, immune-evasive cell therapy to treat patients with type 1 diabetes is breaking new ground as it sets a path to potentially broadening the treatable population by eliminating the need for immunosuppression with implanted cell therapies. This approach builds on previous accomplishments by both companies and represents a major step forward for the field as we strive to provide a functional cure for this devastating disease.”

The clinical trial, which will be carried out in Canada, is to test the safety of the therapy, whether it creates any kind of reaction after being implanted in the body, and how well it does in evading the patient’s immune system. In October our podcast – Talking ‘Bout (re)Generation – highlighted work in T1D and included an interview with Dr. Manasi Jaiman, ViaCyte’s Vice President for Clinical Development. Here’s an excerpt from that podcast.

Dr. Manasi Jaimin, ViaCyte VP Clinical development

Getting under the skin of people with type 1 diabetes – but in a good way

/ Kevin McCormack / 4 Comments

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As someone with a family history of type 1 diabetes (T1D) I know how devastating the condition can be. I also know how challenging it can be to keep it under control and the consequences of failing to do that. Not maintaining healthy blood sugar levels can have a serious impact on the heart, kidney, eyes, nerves, and blood vessels. It can even be fatal.

Right now, controlling T1D means being careful about what you eat, when you eat and how much you eat. It also means regularly checking your blood throughout the day to see if the glucose level is too high or too low. If it’s too high you need to inject insulin; if it’s too low you need to take a fast-acting carbohydrate such as fruit juice or glucose to try and restore it to a healthy level.

That’s why two new approaches to T1D that CIRM has supported are so exciting. They both use small devices implanted under the skin that contain stem cells. The cells can both monitor blood sugar and, if it’s too high, secrete insulin to bring it down.

We sat down with two key members of the Encellin and ViaCyte teams, Dr. Crystal Nyitray and Dr. Manasi Jaiman, to talk about their research, how it works, and what it could mean for people with T1D. That’s in the latest episode of our podcast ‘Talking ‘Bout (re)Generation’.

I think you are going to enjoy it.

This is the size of the implant that ViaCyte is using.
This is the size of the implant Encellin is using

Dr. Crystal Nyitray, CEO & Co-founder Encellin

Dr. Manasi Jaiman, Vice President, Clinical Development ViaCyte

Breakthrough for type 1 diabetes: scientist discovers how to grow insulin-producing cells

/ Yimy Villa / 12 Comments
Matthias Hebrok, PhD, senior author of new study that transformed human stem cells into mature, insulin-producing cells. Photo courtesy of UCSF.

More often than not, people don’t really think about their blood sugar levels before sitting down to enjoy a delicious meal, partake in a tasty dessert, or go out for a bicycle ride. But for type 1 diabetes (T1D) patients, every minute and every action revolves around the readout from a glucose meter, a device used to measure blood sugar levels.

Normally, the pancreas contains beta cells that produce insulin in order to maintain blood sugar levels in the normal range. Unfortunately, those with T1D have an immune system that destroys their own beta cells, thereby decreasing or preventing the production of insulin and in turn the regulation of blood sugar levels. Chronic spikes in blood sugar levels can lead to blindness, nerve damage, kidney failure, heart disease, stroke, and even death.

Those with T1D manage their condition by injecting themselves with insulin anywhere from two to four times a day. A light workout, slight change in diet, or even an exciting event can have a serious impact that requires a glucose meter check and an insulin injection.

There are clinical trials involving transplants of pancreatic “islets”, clusters of cells containing healthy beta cells, but these rely on pancreases from deceased donors and taking immune suppressing drugs for life.

But what if there was a way to produce healthy beta cells in a lab without the need of a transplant?

Dr. Matthias Hebrok, director of the UCSF diabetes center, and Dr. Gopika Nair, postdoctoral fellow, have discovered how to transform human stem cells into healthy, insulin producing beta cells.

In a news release written by Dr. Nicholas Weiler of UCSF, Dr. Hebrok is quoted as saying “We can now generate insulin-producing cells that look and act a lot like the pancreatic beta cells you and I have in our bodies. This is a critical step towards our goal of creating cells that could be transplanted into patients with diabetes.”

For the longest time, scientists could only produce cells at an immature stage that were unable to respond to blood sugar levels and secrete insulin properly. Dr. Hebrok and Dr. Nair discovered that mimicking the “islet” formation of cells in the pancreas helped the cells mature. These cells were then transplanted into mice and found that they were fully functional, producing insulin and responding to changes blood sugar levels.

Dr. Hebrok’s team is already in collaboration with various colleagues to make these cells transplantable into patients.

Gopika Nair, PhD, postdoctoral fellow that led the study for transforming human stem cells into mature, insulin-producing cells. Photo courtesy of UCSF.

Dr. Nair in the article is also quoted as saying “Current therapeutics like insulin injections only treat the symptoms of the disease. Our work points to several exciting avenues to finally finding a cure.”

“We’re finally able to move forward on a number of different fronts that were previously closed to us,” Hebrok added. “The possibilities seem endless.” 

Dr. Hebrok, who is also a member of the CIRM funded UCSF Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research, was senior author of the new study, which was published February 1, 2019 in Nature Cell Biology.

CIRM has funded three separate human clinical trials for T1D that total approximately $37.8 million in awards. Two of these trials are being conducted by ViaCyte, Inc. and the third trial is being conducted by Caladrius Biosciences.

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.”