New Cambridge biotech will be working
on a treatment using stem cells that could let children and adults with
Type 1 diabetes do something their bodies currently cannot: produce
their own insulin, the hormone that keeps blood sugar levels in balance.
Semma
Therapeutics is already off to a strong start. On Tuesday, the company
will disclose it has raised $44 million from big-name investors,
including Boston’s MPM Capital, to commercialize research from the lab
of noted Harvard stem cell scientist Douglas Melton.
The startup, which is in the process of hiring employees and leasing lab space, is seeking to offer a different treatment approach in a field that hasn’t seen significant change for decades.
“This would be a huge breakthrough,” said Dr. George L. King, a Harvard Medical School professor and research director at Joslin Diabetes Center. “It could cure diabetes.”
But it is still likely to be years before Semma’s approach — transplanting insulin-secreting pancreatic “beta cells” into patients — will be available commercially.
First, Semma Therapeutics will have to surmount a daunting scientific challenge: overcoming the autoimmune response in Type 1 diabetes patients that causes their bodies to reject and destroy their own pancreatic cells, which naturally make insulin.
Felicia Pagliuca, who was a postdoctoral fellow in Melton’s lab in the Harvard Stem Cell Institute from 2011 to 2014, led a team that came up with a way to turn stem cells into cells that can produce insulin. Now, as Semma’s scientific cofounder, she will be working to turn those cells into a business — and a treatment for Type 1 diabetes.
Semma
Therapeutics is already off to a strong start. On Tuesday, the company
will disclose it has raised $44 million from big-name investors,
including Boston’s MPM Capital, to commercialize research from the lab
of noted Harvard stem cell scientist Douglas Melton.The startup, which is in the process of hiring employees and leasing lab space, is seeking to offer a different treatment approach in a field that hasn’t seen significant change for decades.
“This would be a huge breakthrough,” said Dr. George L. King, a Harvard Medical School professor and research director at Joslin Diabetes Center. “It could cure diabetes.”
But it is still likely to be years before Semma’s approach — transplanting insulin-secreting pancreatic “beta cells” into patients — will be available commercially.
First, Semma Therapeutics will have to surmount a daunting scientific challenge: overcoming the autoimmune response in Type 1 diabetes patients that causes their bodies to reject and destroy their own pancreatic cells, which naturally make insulin.
Felicia Pagliuca, who was a postdoctoral fellow in Melton’s lab in the Harvard Stem Cell Institute from 2011 to 2014, led a team that came up with a way to turn stem cells into cells that can produce insulin. Now, as Semma’s scientific cofounder, she will be working to turn those cells into a business — and a treatment for Type 1 diabetes.
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