Northerner
Admin (Retired)
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
Cambridge, MA, biotech Semma Therapeutics is developing a stem cell technology that could help diabetics return to producing their own insulin, and the nascent company picked up $44 million and a handshake with Novartis ($NVS) to get rolling.
Semma is at work on a cell therapy for Type 1 diabetes through which it plans to craft insulin-producing human beta cells in the lab and transplant them into patients, thereby reversing the root cause of the disease. And the biotech plans to engineer a device that will allow for the safe introduction of those cells into the body without the need for immunosuppression, hoping to circumvent a common pratfall in cell therapy. The method, developed in the lab of Harvard professor and Semma co-founder Doug Melton, was first published in Cell last year, touted as a major advance for diabetes.
http://www.fiercebiotech.com/story/...4m-and-teams-novartis-cell-therapy/2015-03-24
Semma is at work on a cell therapy for Type 1 diabetes through which it plans to craft insulin-producing human beta cells in the lab and transplant them into patients, thereby reversing the root cause of the disease. And the biotech plans to engineer a device that will allow for the safe introduction of those cells into the body without the need for immunosuppression, hoping to circumvent a common pratfall in cell therapy. The method, developed in the lab of Harvard professor and Semma co-founder Doug Melton, was first published in Cell last year, touted as a major advance for diabetes.
http://www.fiercebiotech.com/story/...4m-and-teams-novartis-cell-therapy/2015-03-24