Savvy Updates, 2/10/2018: Omnipod Dash, Lilly Exec to Mannkind, D Meds Ease Memory Loss, Microbiome at Joslin,

Insulet Submits Omnipod Dash Touchscreen Handheld to FDA as reported by Jeemin Kwon and Adam Brown on diaTribe.org, 25 January 2018.

FDA clearance and limited US launch expected in the second half of 2018. Dash dds improved user experience, Bluetooth, smartphone viewing, remote monitoring. Insulet has not provided details on how large the limited launch will be, how much the Dash PDM will cost, or when a full launch will occur. However, since Dash will change the Omnipod to Bluetooth communication, all users will eventually migrate to it. The small tubeless pod will remain the same size.

Read the details: Insulet Submits Omnipod Dash Touchscreen Handheld to FDA

Lilly diabetes executive becomes CMO at MannKind as reported by Eric Palmer on FiercePharma, 6 February 2018.

MannKind, which continues to try to convince the market of the value of its inhaled insulin, has enticed a top scientific executive away from Eli Lilly as it explores new areas for the fast-acting drug. The Westlake Village, California-based company Tuesday announced that David Kendall, M.D., has joined as MannKind’s chief medical officer. Beginning next week, he takes on responsibility for leading MannKind’s scientific research, clinical development, regulatory, and medical affairs activity.

“David is a world-renowned diabetes expert and represents an important addition to our executive leadership team,” MannKind CEO Michael Castagna said in a statement. “His extensive experience in diabetes research, development and clinical care in both U.S. and international markets will be instrumental in helping us achieve the growth potential that we believe Afrezza clearly possesses.”

Could a three-part diabetes drug ease memory loss in Alzheimer’s? as reported by Arlene Weintraub on FierceBiotech, 31 December 2017.

A group of British scientists, from Lancaster University, is reporting that an experimental three-part drug originally developed for use in Type 2 diabetes seems to reverse memory loss in mice. The treatment combines the growth factors GLP-1, GIP and glucagon. The reasoning behind the approach is that growth factor signaling is impaired in the brains of people who suffer from Alzheimer’s, according to a statement from the university.

When administered in mouse models of Alzheimer’s, the treatment reversed memory loss, which was measured via a maze test, the scientists reported in the journal Brain Research. The drug improved learning and memory formation, slowed down the rate at which nerve cells were lost in the brain, and enhanced levels of a growth factor that preserves the functioning of nerve cells, they said. It also reduced the amount of amyloid plaque—the abnormal brain growths that have been implicated in the disease.

Read more:

Are Microbiome Changes a Cause or Symptom of Type 1 Diabetes? was reported by Katie Bacon on ASweetLife.org, January 2018.

Two years ago, I interviewed Alex Kostic, who was then a postdoctoral fellow at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard exploring the microbiome’s connection to type 1 diabetes. His work studying children in Finland and parts of neighboring Russia showed that the microbiomes of children with type 1 diabetes were drastically different from the microbiomes of those without the disease. Now Kostic is running his own lab at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, and investigating questions such as whether or not the changes in the microbiome are causing disease or are merely a symptom of it. He is also looking at the microbiota of the Joslin medalists—those who have lived with type 1 diabetes for more than fifty years. About 20-30 percent of those medalists still produce a trace amount of insulin, and Kostic is trying to understand whether that insulin production can be explained by differences in those medalists’ microbiomes.