The News:
InnoCentive has partnered with JDRF to offer a $100,000 prize to the person with the most promising novel approach to glucose-responsive insulin. The winner will also be offered the opportunity to be part of a group to develop the concept.
What This Means for the Type 1 Community:
Glucose responsive insulin is unbelievably exciting.
Here’s the idea: when a person with T1D injects a certain amount of today’s insulin, it acts as the “key” that allows glucose to leave the bloodstream and enter the body’s cells–whether the cells need that glucose or not! If a person injects more insulin than the body needs, that person will become hypoglycemic, meaning that they do not have enough glucose in the bloodstream, which can be really dangerous.
The amazing thing about glucose-responsive insulin, as developed by JDRF-funded Smartcells, is that it turns itself on and off. IN THE BLOODSTREAM!
How? Each tiny molecule of insulin is “coated” with other molecules that stop it from actively allowing glucose out of the bloodstream and into the cells. If the levels of glucose in the blood are low, then insulin in unnecessary. The insulin molecule keeps its coating and remains inactive.
When the sugar in the bloodstream increases, glucose molecules stick to the ones surrounding the insulin and pull them off, at which point the insulin (I like to think of it as naked) becomes active.
This is an insulin that people with T1D would theoretically inject once daily or even less often! Those people wouldn’t have to monitor blood glucose levels or calculate carbohydrates because their insulin would do the work for them!
Sound too good to be true? JDRF thinks not. JDRF’s early funding of the fledgling SmartCells has helped to make glucose-responsive insulin a real possibility. We are convinced, and so is Merck, the large pharmaceutical company that bought Smartcells last December for 500 million dollars, which is an enormous vote of confidence.
We have every reason to be optimistic.
But the development of new medications takes years. SmartCells has already proven that their Smartinsulin can effectively control glucose in vitro and in vivo (meaning in petri dishes and in mice and pigs). They are, though, still in pre-clinical (non-human) trials.
While I have no doubt that SmartCells is making remarkable progress, it seems prudent for the T1D research community to investigate other avenues toward the same goal. Novel approaches to the development of an insulin that responds to glucose is in everyone’s best interest. The field is broad. The disease is incredibly complex.
Just as JDRF is committed to funding approaches to cure and prevent, as well as the development of better treatments such as the Artificial Pancreas or glucose-responsive insulin, we should also be committed to novel approaches to each potential solution.
All of it, to me, sounds smart.
If You Want to Read More:
http://www.innocentive.com/help-jdrf-combat-diabetes
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=glucose-responsive+insulin&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart
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What am I missing here? Through our tax dollars, the NIH invested well over 5 million in Todd Zion’s Smartcells glucose responsive insulin, which was subsequently purchased by Merck in December of 2010 for 500 million dollars. So why should we start at square one with is? Why hasn’t Merck, which is the 7th largest pharmaceutical company in the world,, starting clinical trials on humans? The profits from its Januvia and Janumet type 2 diabetes drugs alone are over 1 billion a year.
You bring up an excellent point, Donna.
The issues are several.
Firstly, SmartCells is incredibly promising, as evidenced by Merck’s acquisition of them. There is, however, no guarantee that their technology will succeed. Though they have achieved “proof of concept” and all indications are that their product will work, there is no guarantee.
Importantly, the process of getting an idea from the lab to market is very long–as in ten years on average. SmartCells is still in the early part of its development, which makes its success less certain.
The process of getting an idea to market is also fraught by failure, as evidenced by many concepts that fail in phase I or II clinical trials.
Although backing by a large and successful company like Merck is very helpful, the process of developing a drug that will actually respond to glucose levels is an incredibly complicated task. I’m sure that Merck is doing all they can, with the significant funds you mention, to accelerate that process.
The other important point, and the reason I feel strongly about the Innocentive prize being important, is that JDRF has the responsibility to foster many ideas aimed at the same goal. Part of that is JDRF’s responsibility, now that SmartCells is well provided for by Merck, to offer our assistance to other worthy concepts.
Innovative approaches to the same problem are always beneficial. They spur competition, provide potential solutions to problems, advance technology and create demand.
Although my hope is that SmartCells has rapid success, the need for other GRI’s is patent.
Ummm. I know this is an old posting but I just want to say I followed Smartcells since inception and I even talked to Dr Zion on the phone. The fact was they were in a position and ready to start human trials in Europe before Merck stepped in. Its been almost a year and a half since Merck took over and they haven’t done anything. The drug was ready for human testing. Delaying testing serves no purpose what so ever. Its another year and a half wasted. Besides that the whole JDRF incentive thing is a joke because it took smart cells nearly a decade just to get to the point of being able to start a human trial. You do the math.
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