Emerging Diabetes Drugs Consider Beta Cell Mass And Function As An Important Target

Main Category: Diabetes
Article Date: 02 Sep 2008 - 1:00 PDT

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The next generation of diabetes drugs still is focused on metabolic approaches, but activities to preserve or even regenerate pancreatic islet cell mass and function are gaining momentum

The Business Intelligence firm La Merie S.L. reported from its most recent analysis of emerging diabetes drugs and targets that of the 59 different treatment modalities in clinical development, the majority (36) were metabolic approaches. Preservation of the pancreatic islet cell mass and function as well as intents to regenerate beta cells represent an area of increasing activity and relevance with eleven different programs in clinical stages. Althoug still in a pioneer phase, cell therapy is gaining momentum in corporate diabetes programs as islet transplant or stem cell approaches. At least eight clinical stage programs aim at limiting inflammation leading to beta cell destruction and, thus, also preserve mass and function. Two classes of emerging metabolic approaches stand out from the remainder: the glucose-dependent stimulation of insulin release or secretion by glucokinase activators or direct activation of the GPR119 receptor and the suppression of glucocorticoid action by inhibition of the 11-beta hydroxysteroid dehyrogenase type 1 (HSD-1) or directly of the glucocorticoid receptor. These results and more were found in a search conducted by La Merie Business Intelligence. The evaluation can be acquired at La Merie's online store (http://www.pipelinereview.com/store ).

The report provides information on emerging diabetes drugs directed at new targets which are different from the established diabetes targets PPAR, DPP-IV, GLP-1 and SGLT. It lists competitor projects in the clinical and preclinical pipeline of emerging diabetes drug classes such as glucokinase activators, HSD-1 inhibitors, AMP-activated protein kinase activators, FGF-12 approaches and many more metabolic approaches. The pipeline analysis includes activities to preserve beta cell mass and function by active and passive immunotherapy, by SIRT and gastrin based directions as well as anti-inflammatory approaches. In addition, the report describes the diabetes R&D portfolio of all companies with emerging diabetes drugs including projects for established targets.

About La Merie

La Merie S.L. is a Business Intelligence enterprise fully dedicated to provide high quality R&D information to the biopharmaceutical industry. La Merie offers individual consultancy services and publishes reports and periodicals.

http://www.lamerie.com

About PipelineReview.com

Pipelinereview.comis the News Center and Online Store of La Merie Business Intelligence focused on Research and Development in the Biopharmaceutical Industry. Visitors of PipelineReview.com will find R&D relevant press releases and can receive selected R&D news from one or more of the site's News Channels. La Merie Daily and La Merie Biologics conveniently bring via e-mail a daily or weekly selection of the most interesting news from biopharmaceutical R&D.

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