New immunotherapy trial for Type 1 diabetes
The search for a treatment for Type 1 diabetes (T1D) - which affects over 400,000 people in the UK – will be stepped up with the start of a new phase one clinical trial at Guy’s Hospital in London.
The new immunotherapy treatment, called MultiPepT1De, is being developed to target the autoimmune attack that leads to the development of Type 1 diabetes.
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which cells in the pancreas that make insulin are killed by the immune system. The new therapy, MultiPepT1De, will use fragments of proteins, known as peptides, in an effort to stop this process by ‘switching off’ the specific autoimmune attack, and hopefully preventing further destruction of the pancreatic cells.
In laboratory testing, MultiPepT1De is more powerful than the first generation treatment trialled last year and is designed to benefit a higher proportion of those with Type 1 diabetes than its predecessor.
MultiPepT1De was developed with funding from the Wellcome Trust by researchers at King’s College London working in the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) at Guy’s and St Thomas’ and King’s College London.
MultiPepT1De will be trialled on 24 people with Type 1 diabetes by autumn 2016 and the study team is hopeful of positive results that build upon their previous findings showing that the first generation of MultiPepT1De, called MonoPepT1De, is safe and well tolerated, with some evidence of positive effects in T1D patients.
Professor Mark Peakman, Principal Investigator at the BRC and Head of the Division of Diabetes and Nutritional Sciences at King's, said: “We are really looking forward to seeing the results from this new trial. What we are doing is a big step forward in precision medicine, taking a set of patients with a particular disease and genetic background and giving them an immunotherapy designed in the laboratory specifically for them. Obviously we will need to wait until we have the full results of the trial before we know if it is successful but at this stage we are hopeful.”
Dr Stephen Caddick, Director of Innovations at the Wellcome Trust, said: “Type 1 diabetes is a very serious condition that normally requires lifelong treatment with insulin therapy, but this promising new form of ‘immunotherapy’ could be set to change that. By retraining the immune system to prevent it from attacking insulin-producing cells, it may be possible to slow progression of the disease or even stop it in its tracks. If this approach is proved successful in larger studies it has the potential to transform the lives of people with Type 1 diabetes.”
In the last decade, the number of people in the UK with diabetes has risen by around 65 per cent to 4m, according to Diabetes UK, with around 400,000 adults and children now suffering from Type 1 diabetes. Treating diabetes is estimated to cost the NHS around £10 billion per year.
MultiPepT1De is based on an area of study called peptide immunotherapy, which is currently being applied to a number of other diseases, including allergies and multiple sclerosis.
Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Health, said: “This exciting new treatment has the potential to transform the lives of thousands of patients across the UK living with Type 1 diabetes. Thanks to our strong economy we invest over £1 billion every year in health research, helping us to lead the world in medical innovation and give NHS patients the latest cutting-edge treatments.”
Notes to editors:
For more information, please contact Jenny Gimpel in the King’s College London press office on 020 7848 4334, jenny.gimpel@kcl.ac.uk.
The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and King's College London is one of the first five (of 11) biomedical research centres in England funded by the National Institute of Health Research to help establish the UK's translational biomedical research infrastructure. With embedded world class core facilities, a range of hosted research organisations and partnerships with industry, this represents the foundation for London’s premier biomedical cluster. We are arranged around four research clusters. www.guysandstthomasbrc.nihr.ac.uk
Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust provides more than 2 million patient contacts in acute and specialist hospital services and community services every year. As one of the biggest NHS trusts in the UK, with an annual turnover of more than £1.3 billion, we employ around 13,650 staff. www.guysandstthomas.nhs.uk
Guy’s and St Thomas’ is part of King’s Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre (AHSC), a collaboration between King’s College London, and Guy’s and St Thomas’, King’s College Hospital and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trusts. www.kingshealthpartners.org
Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to improving health. We support bright minds in science, the humanities and the social sciences, as well as education, public engagement and the application of research to medicine. Our investment portfolio gives us the independence to support such transformative work as the sequencing and understanding of the human genome, research that established front-line drugs for malaria, and Wellcome Collection, our free venue for the incurably curious that explores medicine, life and art. www.wellcome.ac.uk
National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is funded by the Department of Health to improve the health and wealth of the nation through research. Since its establishment in April 2006, the NIHR has transformed research in the NHS. It has increased the volume of applied health research for the benefit of patients and the public, driven faster translation of basic science discoveries into tangible benefits for patients and the economy, and developed and supported the people who conduct and contribute to applied health research. The NIHR plays a key role in the Government’s strategy for economic growth, attracting investment by the life-sciences industries through its world-class infrastructure for health research. Together, the NIHR people, programmes, centres of excellence and systems represent the most integrated health research system in the world. For further information, visit the NIHR website (www.nihr.ac.uk).