Company News | | Archive – 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007
Current
October 30, 2008 – Smart Insulin: An experimental drug for diabetes dispenses insulin in response to glucose levels
Technology published by MIT Review
By Jennifer Chu
Maintaining tight control over blood-sugar levels is a daily challenge for people with diabetes: it requires constant monitoring and multiple insulin injections each day. Now the biotech company SmartCells, based in Beverly, MA, is developing a drug that may do most of the heavy lifting in controlling diabetes. The injectable drug, called SmartInsulin, senses high glucose levels and automatically dispenses insulin on demand. As glucose levels drop off, the drug stabilizes, trapping insulin until the next glucose spike. Such a drug may cut down the number of insulin injections required to once a day. [read more]
October 24, 2008 – SmartCells’ Diabetes Program Aims To Fight Sugar With Sugar
BioWorld Today
By Anette Breindl, Science Editor
Diabetics are in a complicated relationship with their insulin. Type I diabetics, as well as some Type II diabetics, need to inject insulin to survive.
But the amount of insulin needs to be carefully calibrated: "Once conventional insulin is injected, it's going to exert its effects no matter what you do," Todd Zion told BioWorld Today. As a result, diabetics need to keep constant tabs on their blood sugar, keep strict control over their diet and inject insulin – some multiple times daily – or they risk severe health
consequences.
But Beverly, Mass.-based SmartCells Inc., of which Zion is the president and CEO, hopes to make it easier for diabetics to keep their blood sugar in a safe range. The company is developing chemically modified insulin designed to be sensitive to blood sugar levels, releasing itself only when blood sugar levels are within a certain range. [download full PDF]