As Diabetes Becomes Global Epidemic, PharmaCyte Biotech's Insulin Producing Cells Receive 20 Years of Protection
July 19 2016 - 9:00AM
Marketwired
As Diabetes Becomes Global Epidemic, PharmaCyte Biotech's
Insulin Producing Cells Receive 20 Years of Protection
NEW YORK, NY-(Marketwired - July 19, 2016) - Worldwide the
number of people living with diabetes has reached 422 million, and
if the current trend continues, over 700 million people are
expected to be living with diabetes by 2025. Diabetes has clearly
become a healthcare crisis on a global scale, and PharmaCyte
Biotech (OTCQB: PMCB) recently received some good news in the form
of patent protection that will help the company do its part in
bringing a treatment to tens of millions of these patients.
PharmaCyte recently learned from the U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office (USTPO) that it now has 20 years of patent protection in the
United States for the "Melligen" cells that are a part of the
company's therapy for Type 1 and insulin-dependent Type 2 diabetes.
The timing is perfect because the same research that laid out the
dramatic rise in the numbers of people affected by diabetes, also
found that the global cost of diabetes has ballooned to
$825-billion per year.
These staggering numbers come from the largest study ever done
on diabetes levels across the globe. The study was published in the
journal The Lancet and was led by scientists from Imperial
College London, and involved Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public
Health, the World Health Organization, and nearly 500 researchers
across the globe, and it incorporated data from 4.4 million adults
in most of the world's countries.
PharmaCyte's therapy for diabetes is made up of its signature
live-cell encapsulation technology Cell-in-a-Box®, which are
pinhead-sized, porous capsules that are filled with insulin
producing cells (Melligen cells). The capsules would protect the
Melligen cells from destruction by the immune system and, in turn,
would essentially create an "artificial pancreas" for type 1
diabetics and insulin-dependent type 2 diabetics that no longer
produce their own insulin.
Prof. Ann. M Simpson and her colleagues at the University of
Technology Sydney developed the Melligen cell line as an
alternative to the transplantation of islets. According to Prof.
Simpson and her team's research, which was published in the
journal, Molecular Therapy - Methods & Clinical Development,
the cells are a human liver cell line that has been genetically
engineered to reverse type 1 diabetes.
(http://www.nature.com/articles/mtm201511)
The authors of the article note that, for the Melligen cells to
be effective in treating Type 1 diabetes in humans where the
insulin-producing β cells of the pancreas have been destroyed, it
will be necessary to protect those cells from rejection by the
body's immune system after they have been introduced into the body.
The article points out that one way to protect the Melligen cells
would be to encapsulate the cells in protective "cocoons" prior to
being placed into a diabetic patient. If this is done, the authors
believe that encapsulated Melligen cells may offer a "cure" for
Type 1 diabetes.
It was PharmaCyte's Cell-in-a-Box® that got the attention of
Prof. Simpson and her colleagues as the ideal encapsulation
technology. In a 6-month study, pancreatic islet cells from pigs
were encapsulated using the Cell-in-a-Box® capsules. Those capsules
containing the islet cells were then implanted into live, diabetic
rats. Within only a few days, the blood-sugar levels of the
diabetic rats became normal and stayed at normal levels for the
entire study.
When the capsules were removed from the rats at the end of the
study, the islet cells inside the capsules were still alive and
functioning. Pigs were chosen as the source for the pancreatic
islet cells because biologically they are the closest to humans.
Because islet cells from pigs ("foreign" donors) could be implanted
in rats without the cells being rejected, this proves the islet
cells inside PharmaCyte's Cell-in-a-Box® capsules were protected
from attack by the rats' immune systems.
So now that the Melligen cells have received the patent
protection necessary in both the United States and Europe, the
marriage between the Cell-in-a-Box® capsules and the Melligen cells
is in the hands of PharmaCyte's International Diabetes Consortium,
which consists of world-renowned physicians and scientists from a
number of countries around the world, all of whom share the same
goal of developing a treatment for insulin-dependent diabetes.
Watch PharmaCyte's video on the development of its diabetes
treatment at:www.PharmaCyte.com/diabetes.
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