Encellin raises about $10M for type 1 diabetes cell replacement therapy
Encellin raised $9.9 million to join the burgeoning type 1 diabetes space with its own cell replacement therapy and first-in-human data expected next year.
The small team at the San Francisco-based company employs fewer than five people, who developed what they call encapsulated cell replacement therapy (EnCRT) – a porous device that holds cadaveric primary islets that can be subcutaneously inserted in a patient and secrete islets when needed to manage type 1 diabetes. In type 1 patients, the islet cells located in the pancreas are destroyed or damaged by the immune system and don’t make insulin.
The financing round was led by Khosla Ventures with participation from Y Combinator.
Encellin hopes to use its therapy to create a “living medicine” to isolate islet cells from the body’s immune system in its EnCRT pouch and thus help them survive in the body. Once the cell replacement therapy is implanted in a patient, “it integrates into the tissue site, so it allows cells to basically hook up to the body while they’re physically contained” and then secrete “as needed when needed,” according to CEO and co-founder Crystal Nyitray.
She added that the company’s ultimate vision is to use its therapy to provide long-term treatment for patients.
“Diabetes is an excellent example where there’s really a significant unmet clinical need that we can address by leveraging insulin insert technology specifically for high-risk type 1’s,” Nyitray said. “In the T1D space, there are these high-risk, severely hypoglycemic patients that we really want to focus on first.”
The funding will go toward an already-approved, four-month Phase I trial evaluating the safety of the subcutaneous transplantation of primary islets into type 1 diabetes patients using Encellin’s EnCRT. The financing will also be used to expand the team and further develop the platform.
According to Encellin, preclinical data already collected from its first candidate in type 1 showed no fibrosis or immune response “while maintaining cell viability and function.”
“Islets are known to be very challenging cell type to work with, so our thesis has always been that when we show that this can work in humans with islets, it really will highlight the capability of the platform to work with a variety of other cell types, including other beta cells, and outside of diabetes, as well,” Nyitray added.
For more information, visit www.encellin.com.
Source: https://endpts.com/encellin-raises-about-10m-for-type-1-diabetes-cell-replacement-therapy/