The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and Birmingham-based Southern Research have discovered a new drug candidate that represents a major advance in the treatment of diabetes.
A UAB statement reported Thursday that the drug has been tested on isolated human and mouse pancreatic islets, the place where the hormones insulin and glucagon are produced. It has also been tested in cell cultures of mice and rats and animal models of type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
The candidate drug, called SRI-37330, is an orally administered small non-toxic molecule that effectively rescued mice from models of both types of diabetes.
SRI-37330 was reportedly discovered through two decades of research by Anath Shalev, MD, director of the UAB Comprehensive Diabetes Center. Southern Research used its findings to search 300,000 compounds and identify promising clues. The nonprofit organization optimized the drug from those cables, using medicinal chemistry.
The strong antidiabetic properties and safety profiles of this newly designed chemical compound were published in the journal Cell Metabolism this week. According to the UAB, this study is the culmination of 10 years of work done by the Shalev-led lab and a massive search, followed by detailed drug improvements, by Southern Research.
UAB and Southern Research researchers found that the experimental drug significantly improved four problems caused by diabetes:
• Blood sugar levels that are too high;
• Too high levels of the hormone glucagon, which exacerbates too high a level of blood sugar;
• Excessive production of glucose by the liver; and
• Fatty liver, known as hepatic steatosis.
“Compared to currently available diabetes therapies, this compound may provide a different, effective, and highly beneficial approach to treating diabetes,” said Shalev, the research leader. “We are committed to seeing this drug move safely to humans as quickly as possible and we are currently exploring the best way to do it.”
Diabetes affects 425 million people worldwide and more than 30 million in the United States. It is a growing epidemic, with 1.5 million Americans newly diagnosed each year. Alabama had the third highest prevalence of diabetes in the country as of 2012, according to the Department of Public Health.
Preclinical studies led by Shalev suggest that SRI-37330 could be beneficial for both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, including lean and obese people.
“The safety and efficacy of SRI-37330 in humans has not yet been determined,” he added, “but we have seen that it is highly effective in human islets, is bioavailable orally, and is well tolerated in mice.”
According to the UAB publication, the 80 million people in the United States who have prediabetes could also benefit from the potential drug. Furthermore, the effectiveness of SRI-37330 in reducing fatty liver in mice suggested that it may have potential to treat non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which affects about 100 million people nationwide and one billion worldwide. .
Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
