‘Dis­ap­point­ing’ Vi­a­Cyte da­ta raise ques­tions about fu­ture of com­pa­ny’s at­tempt­ed di­a­betes cure

Over the last 20 years, Vi­a­Cyte — un­der one name or an­oth­er — has pur­sued one of the most au­da­cious goals in biotech: a cure for type 1 di­a­betes.

The com­pa­ny’s plan was to take lab-grown stem cells and turn them in­to the in­sulin-pro­duc­ing cells that are de­stroyed in T1D pa­tients. The first at­tempt to im­plant these cells in­to pa­tients in 2014 failed en­tire­ly. But the San Diego biotech re­grouped and launched tri­als for a new can­di­date in 2017, rais­ing $80 mil­lion in the process.

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