Diabetes Research Endowment

Priority area: Transforming our world

Diabetes represents a significant and growing world-wide health issue with the annual international market for diabetes therapeutics nearing $30 billion. Beta Therapeutics Pty Ltd, an ANU spin-off company, was founded to drive the commercial development of a diabetes treatment based on ANU research and intellectual property.

The research, conducted by Professor Chris Parish, Dr Charmaine Simeonovic and their research teams at the ANU John Curtin School of Medical Research, has led to the discovery of a novel, critical mechanism of diabetes disease progression. This discovery led to the development of a unique therapeutic strategy and drug target for the treatment of diabetes. Pre-clinical studies have defined a new class of therapeutics that uniquely spare insulin-producing pancreatic islets cells in laboratory models of type 1 diabetes. Treatment with such therapeutics has been shown to modulate diabetes severity, enhance islet viability and prevent the onset of diabetes.

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