Partnership launched to find new diabetes insulin drugs

A new partnership between type 1 diabetes research organisation the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) and InnoCentive, Inc, a leader in open innovation and crowdsourcing, has announced a USD100,000 challenge for the development of insulin drug treatment.
The challenge is focused on producing new ideas for glucose-responsive insulin drugs, to help treat insulin-dependent diabetes patients and improve the quality of their life. The partnership hope to produce a breakthrough in the search for an innovative and transformative insulin drug that would improve the management of glucose levels and lower or get rid of having to test blood glucose levels, as well as reducing the risk of diabetic complications.
The ideal is to develop a drug that only works when the body needs it to, with glucose-responsive insulin providing the exact amount of insulin necessary as a response to the levels of circulating glucose in the body, and also to keep normal glucose levels during the day by just the use of once-daily or even less often dosing for diabetics.
Aaron Kowalskin, assistant vice president of treatment therapies at JDRF, commented “Although research has propelled the development of better and faster-acting insulins, the disease is still hard to control because of the way insulin is administered to patients.”
He added “What we need is sophisticated insulin that will take the guesswork out of managing diabetes by developing a novel insulin that works in the same way insulin works in people without diabetes.”