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Shares of Provention Bio, a New Jersey-based pharmaceutical company listed on the stock exchange last year, more than tripled Monday after the company's experimental drug appeared to delay the onset of type 1 diabetes in a clinical trial.
The drug, called teplizumab, was associated with a two-year diagnostic difference with respect to the disease, according to the results of a clinical trial published Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study, conducted among people at risk for diabetes due to family members with the disease and blood markers, was also presented at the American Diabetes Association conference. which runs from Friday to Tuesday in San Francisco.
Type 1 diabetes affects more than one million Americans and is the second most common childhood illness after asthma, according to study researchers led by Dr. Kevan Herold. from Yale University. Although insulin can be controlled, type 1 diabetes currently has no cure and efforts have focused on prevention.
"The results of this essay are striking, with several caveats," wrote Dr. Clifford Rosen of the Maine Medical Institute and Dr. Julie Inglefinger of MassGeneral Hospital for Children in an editorial of the New England Journal of Medicine.
They noted that the trial was small, only 76 patients, and involved only one treatment of teplizumab, two weeks. The results showed that the median time to diagnosis of type 1 diabetes was 48.4 months in patients taking the drug, compared to 24.4 months for those taking placebo.
Teplizumab is an immunotherapy, a drug that targets the immune system. The most famous recent success in this area is the treatment of cancer. In this context, teplizumab is thought to prevent the immune system from targeting insulin-producing cells.
The drug was associated with some side effects, including a rash and a decrease in the number of immune cells called lymphocytes, which both resolved.
Provention Bio acquired the rights to teplizumab from MacroGenics, a Maryland company, which suspended its development in 2010 after a clinical trial with partner Eli Lilly, which showed that the treatment did not slow the progression of diabetes.
The company first sold shares to the public in July 2018. Its stock climbed to 424% on Monday, reaching an intra-day high of $ 22.82. Its shares traded around $ 15 in the early afternoon, giving Provention a market value of $ 687 million.
"Delaying the onset of clinical type 1 diabetes may mean that the burden of the disease could be postponed to such an extent that patients would be better able to manage their disease, such as after infancy, the only way to manage it. elementary school, high school or even college, "Herold, the main author of the study, said in a statement Provention.
The company is now considering the next steps for the drug in patients at risk for type 1 diabetes, as well as the drug in newly diagnosed patients, said Executive Director Ashleigh Palmer in the release.
"The possibility of delaying the onset of clinical type 1 diabetes," Palmer said, "is a breakthrough."
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