CALGARY – Dr. Pere Santamaria just wanted to get a closer look at an inflamed pancreas as part of his diabetes research.
The University of Calgary professor developed a contrast agent, similar to those used for MRIs, expecting it would better highlight what was happening in the insulin-producing gland.
It didn’t.
Instead, injecting that agent into diabetic animals has led to the possibility of a treatment that can both prevent and reverse Type 1 diabetes in people, offering hope to millions who suffer from the disease.
“He couldn’t see the inflammation, but the reason was exciting,� says Phil Coggins, CEO of Parvus Therapeutics, the company that grew from Santamaria’s research. “The animals no longer had diabetes.�
Type 1 diabetes means daily injections to regulate insulin levels because the immune system has destroyed the cells in the pancreas that produce it.
The disease, the leading cause of kidney failure, adult blindness, stroke, heart disease, nerve damage and amputation, according to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, costs the Canadian health care system more than $17 billion a year.
“A cure for Type 1 would mean the 300,000 Canadians living with this devastating disease would no longer have to inject themselves multiple times a day, continually worry about blood sugar highs and lows, as well as be fearful of the life threatening complications that can accompany this disease,� Andrew McKee, CEO of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, said in an e-mail. “Dr. Santamaria has been doing some interesting and exciting research in this field over the past number of years.�
The foundation has funded some of that research.
Greatly simplified, Santamaria first identified that the immune system not only produces the bad T cells attacking the pancreas, but good T cells that fight them. However, the number of bad cells far outnumber the good.
Santamaria’s treatment spurs production of the good cells, which are then able to eliminate those cells driving the disease.
Parvus, which is basically Santamaria, Coggins and Jord Cowan — and two of them still have day jobs — has spent the last 18 months testing the treatment on mice.
With 70 per cent to 80 per cent of the animals permanently free of diabetes after receiving the injections, according to Coggins, the company is now looking to raise $30 million to move to clinical trials.
Even the 20 to 30 per cent of mice who relapse see the disease disappear after another round of treatment, Coggins said.
“At this point the exciting news is for mice with diabetes,� Coggins, who took on the CEO role about nine months ago, said. “But I think in due course it’s going to be very good news for people with Type 1 diabetes as well.�
He is now making the rounds of local angel investors, venture capitalists who specialize in biotech and potential industry partners to try fund the company’s next stage. They are talking to five or six interested parties.
Biotech investments — with a long gestation period, lengthy, government-regulated testing, and a typical return rate of five to seven years — can be a hard sell.
