SymbioCellTech Joins Startup Health’s Type 1 Diabetes Moonshot Fellowship to Advance Groundbreaking Neo-Islet Therapy

SymbioCelllTech is pleased to announce that the company has become a member of StartupHealth’s Type 1 Diabetes Moonshot Fellowship. The Fellowship, a community of more than 20 scientists, entrepreneurs and innovators, is one of the venture capital investment firm’s collaborative models to make progress on critical health challenges.

The Type 1 Diabetes Moonshot is supported by The Helmsley Charitable Trust and creates a three-year engagement for Fellows, working to address the 18 million-plus T1D patients around the world.

StartupHealth was launched in 2011 to focus resources on promising diagnostics, treatments and cures. The “moonshot” model imagines achieving “audacious health goals,” according to founder Steven Krein. “We see the potential in catalytic ideas and we work to bring together information, training, networks and resources so we can transform health challenges into successes.”

SymbioCellTech is developing “NeoIslets” (™), a new therapy that combines stem cells and pancreatic islet cells that enables the diabetic patient’s body to again produce adequate amounts of its own insulin, but without the need for toxic antirejection drugs or encapsulation devices. A cellular replacement therapy that works long term and doesn’t require anti-rejection drugs is a real breakthrough – it’s a therapy that all T1DM patients would be able to use.

“We are excited to welcome the SymbioCellTech team to the T1D Moonshot Community,” said StartUp Health’s Chief Strategy Officer, Bari Krein. “After meeting them in person at ADA this year, we knew they were aligned with our mission, and that of our T1D Moonshot. Their passion and commitment to working towards a cure is inspiring and we look forward to seeing how they grow with the support of our global founder community.”

“We’re pleased to be invited to join the Type 1 Diabetes Moonshot community,” said SymbioCellTech’s Dr. Anna Gooch, “because we recognize how important it is for all of us to work toward the shared goal of ending the diabetes spiral that affects so many people.” The company is in the process of its final phase of pre-clinical testing of its patented Neo-Islet(™) technology for its Investigational New Drug Application (IND) to be submitted to the FDA, “as soon as we can manage it,” according to Dr. Gooch. With the IND, SymbioCellTech plans to conduct the First-in-Human Clinical Trial likely at the City of Hope, UC San Diego, UCLA and UC Davis