New Type 1 Diabetes Treatment Eliminates Need for Insulin

Fact checked by Nick Blackmer

Key Takeaways

• The FDA has approved a new drug called Lantidra to manage low blood sugar in people with type 1 diabetes.

• The drug helps control blood sugar levels through an infusion of donor pancreatic cells that create insulin in the body so that patients no longer need to take external insulin.

• This drug is for people with severe and recurrent hypoglycemia who are unable to achieve target blood sugar levels.
  

In June, the FDA approved Lantidra—the first donor cell therapy for people with type 1 diabetes who struggle with severe and recurrent low blood sugar. The drug eliminates the need for external insulin, and avoids something as invasive as an islet cell transplant.

Lantidra (donislecel-jujn) is for people who have trouble managing their blood sugar and suffer from hypoglycemia, or for people who have hypoglycemia unawareness—a condition where patients are unable to detect their dropping blood sugar and might not be able to treat it before it drops to potentially dangerous levels. This can be a life-threatening condition that is not easily treatable with medication.

“Severe hypoglycemia is a dangerous condition that can lead to injuries resulting from loss of consciousness or seizures,” said Peter Marks, MD, PhD, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, in a FDA press release about Lantidra. “Today’s approval, the first-ever cell therapy to treat patients with type 1 diabetes, provides individuals living with type 1 diabetes and recurrent severe hypoglycemia an additional treatment option to help achieve target blood glucose levels.”

Developed by CellTrans, Lantidra is an infusion of islet cells from a deceased donor into the liver portal vein of the diabetic patient. Because the infused cells restore functional pancreatic islet cells in people with type 1 diabetes, external insulin is no longer necessary.

Related: Type 1 Diabetes and Hypoglycemia: Causes and Treatments

Small—But Successful—Clinical Trials Led to Approval

Lantidra’s safety was studied in two non-randomized trials with 30 participants who live with type 1 diabetes and hypoglycemic unawareness. The patients received at least one Lantidra infusion and a maximum of three infusions, the FDA said in its press release.

After their infusions, 21 patients did not need to take insulin for a year or more. Eleven patients did not need insulin for one to five years and 10 participants did not need insulin for more than five years. Five patients required external insulin after the infusions, and did not achieve any insulin independence.

During the trials there were two deaths—one from multiorgan failure with sepsis about one-and-a-half years after the first infusion, and one from progressive confusion, global atrophy and micro-ischemic disease almost 10 years after the first dose. Both subjects were on immunosuppression at the time.

What to Know About Lantidra

This drug was specifically approved to tackle ongoing and severe low blood sugar in patients with type 1 diabetes who are unable to reach target blood sugar levels despite intensive diabetes management and education.

Type 1 diabetes is a disease where the body's own immune system starts attacking the insulin producing cells of the pancreas, Omid Veiseh, PhD, an associate professor of bioengineering at Rice University, told Verywell. Once those cells are killed off, the patient can no longer regulate their blood glucose, meaning they need to rely on external insulin.

“This new drug gets those insulin producing cells from deceased donors…then they’re purified to be safe in terms of pathogens and whatnot—and then they’re infused into type 1 diabetic recipients,” Veiseh said. “But because the disease is autoimmune mediated, and the cells are from a donor, the patient will receive immunosuppression [medication]. The immune suppression basically protects the cells from the host’s immune response.”

Up until now, patients with recurrent and severe hypoglycemia have had to work with their endocrinologist to manage blood sugar as best as they can through the dosing of their insulin as well as diet and exercise. In severe cases, the use of glucagon, which helps rescue patients from an episode of hypoglycemia, is used, said Fernando Ovalle, MD, director of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine.

“You don’t want to have hypoglycemia, especially severe or repeated,” Ovalle told Verywell, explaining that a severe low blood sugar can result in incidents like falling and hitting your head, cardiac arrest, or seizures.

For patients for whom ongoing hypoglycemia poses a great threat to their health, including death, an islet cell transplant might be considered. During this procedure, islets are taken from the pancreas of a deceased organ donor, then transferred into a patient with type 1 diabetes. Once the cells are implanted in the liver, they are able to make insulin.

Lantidra introduces healthy islet cells without requiring a transplant procedure.

Related: 'This Is Real Freedom': Islet Cell Transplant Helps One Woman Become Insulin Independent

Veiseh said advancements like Lantidra are giving hope to the medical and type 1 diabetes community. In the future, advancements will likely include replaceable cell types that can be lab-grown—so you don’t have to rely on donors—as well as localized immunosuppression strategies. This means that only the site that cells are infused into will need to be immunosuppressed, not the entire body.

“I think, in the next five or 10 years, we’re going to see a lot more of these islet replacement therapies, on the market,” Veiseh said. “And it’s going to be great for patients, because the cure is to replace those missing cells that have been killed off.”

How Lantidra Is Administered

Lantidra is a prescription medication that is administered by a healthcare professional via infusion into the liver. The recommended minimum dose is 5,000 equivalent islet number (EIN) per kg for the first infusion, and 4,500 EIN/kg for subsequent infusions, the drugmaker said.

The drug is currently only recommended for people who experience recurrent and severe hypoglycemia or have hypoglycemia unawareness. It is not for all people with type 1 diabetes, or for people with type 2 diabetes. It’s best for any patient considering the drug to first consult with their healthcare provider to see if they are the right candidate.

Lantidra is given in a single infusion dose. An additional dose or two may be necessary depending on whether the patient responds to the first infusion and achieves independence from external insulin within one year. In other words, if the first infusion is not successful, another dose might be needed. There is currently no data on the effectiveness or safety for patients who have more than three infusions.

How Does Lantidra Work?

Lantidra is an infusion of islet cells from a deceased donor into the liver portal vein of the diabetic patient. The infused cells restore functional pancreatic islet cells in people with type 1 diabetes, removing the need for external insulin.

Known Side Effects

In clinical trials, there were a series of adverse reactions associated with Lantidra. The drugmaker said these varied with each participant and depended on the number of infusions they received.

Ninety percent of trial participants had at least one serious adverse reaction, and the major causes were attributed to the infusion procedure and immunosuppression drugs. Some of these side effects meant that the patient needed to stop taking the immunosuppressants, which stopped the drug from working.

Some of the most common reactions were nausea, fatigue, anemia, diarrhea, and abdominal pain.

Aside from the side effects of Lantidra itself, there are risks with taking immunosuppressants for a long period of time, including risk of infections, lymphomas and anemia.

“These adverse events should be considered when assessing the benefits and risks of Lantidra for each patient,” the FDA said in its press release.

While the safety of taking Lantidra while pregnant has not been assessed, there are known risks for being on immunosuppressants while expecting. Fetal malformations are associated with some of the suppression drugs, therefore the drugmaker warns patients should have a confirmed negative pregnancy test before starting Lantidra.

How to Get Lantidra

Veiseh said because Lantidra relies on donor cells, CellTrans has a limited supply of the drug.

“You’re sort of at the mercy of donors being available,” he said. “I think the best estimates put this at 2,000 to 4,000 patients per year that you could treat just because of the limitation of organ availability.”

However, Veiseh said Lantidra is a step in the right direction for patients with type 1 diabetes who suffer from severe, ongoing low blood sugar. It is giving them another option instead of an islet cell transplant—a procedure that is only available in certain healthcare settings.

“In other countries, this kind of therapy has been available and reimbursed by insurance for years, but in the U.S., it was sort of a patchwork system of various surgeons that did it but it wasn’t really available to everyone,” said Veiseh. The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases has said that islet transplantation is considered an experimental procedure, and until it’s approved as a treatment for type 1 diabetes, it can only be performed for research purposes through clinical trials and is generally not covered by insurance.

“I think this is really a big step forward towards making this a potential solution that is uniformly available to all the patients as opposed to just certain ones,” Veiseh said.