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ViaCyte earns $16.6M grant to expand development of type 1 diabetes therapy
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The regenerative medicine company ViaCyte, Inc. received a $16.6 million Accelerated Development Pathway Award from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to support the progress of a stem cell-derived islet replacement therapy for the treatment of diabetes, according to a press release.
The therapy, dubbed VC-01, is a combination product consisting of pancreatic progenitor cells, derived from a proprietary human stem cell line, encapsulated in ViaCyte’s proprietary Encaptra device, which is designed to be implanted under the skin, according to the release.
“(This) grant allows us to continue to accelerate our efforts as we move into the critically important stage of evaluating VC-01 in human clinical trials,” Paul Laikind, PhD, president and CEO of the San Diego-based company, said in the release. The therapy is initially targeting type 1 diabetes.
Several rounds of funding and technical support by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) have been critical in developing the therapy, recently given the FDA go-ahead to begin trials, the release stated.
CIRM provides applicants making rapid progress with resources to accelerate stem cell-based therapies towards demonstrating evidence of acceptable safety profiles and clinical proofs of concept, according to the release.
The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation is also providing support for the development of VC-01, the release said.