Researchers at the University of Maryland Joslin Diabetes Center are testing whether a novel immunotherapy drug, otelixizumab, will help prevent the destruction of insulin-producing cells in patients newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. The center is the only site in Maryland and just 1 of 100 sites in North America and Europe taking part in the Phase III clinical trial.
In type 1 diabetes, the body's immune system attacks the pancreas' beta cells. People with the disease use regular insulin injections to help them process sugar. Patients have about 20 percent of their functioning beta cells left when they are first diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, according to Thomas W. Donner, M.D., lead investigator of the University of Maryland study.
"Preserving these remaining beta cells would be very beneficial to patients. Studies have shown that when type 1 diabetes patients are still making some of their own insulin, their blood sugar levels are much easier to control and they require less insulin," says Dr. Donner, medical director of the Joslin Diabetes Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center and associate professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "If this therapy proves to be effective, it could potentially lead to fewer low blood sugar reactions and complications from diabetes in the future."
The clinical trial, the Durable-Response Therapy Evaluation for Early or New-Onset Type 1 Diabetes, is called DEFEND-1, is sponsored by Tolerx, Inc., a Cambridge, Mass., company that is producing the drug in conjunction with GlaxoSmithKline. The study is also being funded by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
Writer: Walaika Haskins
Source: Dr. Thomas Donner, U of MD