Source: https://www.mcgill.ca/
Investigators at Montreal’s Lady Davis Institute at the Jewish General Hospital and McGill University Health Centre have announced the start of a landmark clinical study aimed at restoring normal insulin secretion in people with longstanding type 1 diabetes. The treatment combines INGAP Peptide (ExsulinTM), which stimulates growth of the insulin secreting islets, and ustekinumab (SteleraTM), a drug approved for the treatment of psoriasis. This is the first study that combines a specific islet regeneration agent and a treatment to control autoimmune attack of the newly formed islets. INGAP Peptide is the result of pioneering research by Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg, Professor of Surgery and Medicine, McGill University and President and CEO of the Integrated Health & Social Services University Network for West-Central Montreal, and his collaborator Dr. Aaron I. Vinik, Director of Research and Murray Waitzer Endowed Chair for Diabetes Research at the Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS). Dr. Vinik and his colleagues identified the specific INGAP Peptide after Dr. Rosenberg demonstrated islet regeneration can be induced and isolated the islet regeneration activity. The study is jointly led by Dr. Rosenberg and Dr. George Tsoukas, Senior Endocrinologist and Associate Professor of Medicine, McGill University Health Centre.
The design of the study is based on previous trials of INGAP Peptide alone, which demonstrated improvement in insulin secretion and glucose control in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes patients. The addition of ustekinumab, an interleukin-12 inhibitor, is based on research by Dr. Jerry Nadler, Chair of Medicine and Vice Dean of Research at EVMS, which showed the islet restoring effect of INGAP peptide was enhanced by the addition of another IL-12 inhibitor.
Read more: https://www.mcgill.ca/medicine/channels/news/clinical-trial-type-1-diabetes-begins-jgh-muhc-257015