CureDM's Diabetes Therapy Achieves Major Development Milestone

CureDM, Inc., a
biopharmaceutical company developing new therapies that prevent,
ameliorate, or reverse both type 1 and 2 diabetes, announces its
achievement of a major drug development milestone for Human proIslet
Peptide (HIP). CureDM has successfully stabilized HIP to improve its
bioavailability with recent dose response studies indicating that the
dosage used in man may be as much as 100-fold lower than the native form.
HIP is a 14-amino acid human peptide derived from a specific human gene
responsible for populating the pancreas with islets, which contain the
cells that secrete insulin and other hormones necessary to prevent
diabetes.



"Meeting this milestone has a significant impact on the commercial
value of Human proIslet Peptide," according to Loraine V. Upham, CEO. "Not
only does this mean lower costs associated with the manufacture and
commercialization, but also potentially better safety and tolerability
outcomes in human trials." CureDM has filed with the FDA and anticipates
approval for commencement of human studies in early 2009.



Further studies are underway to determine just how low of a dose is
possible. Previous studies have confirmed that the stabilization of HIP did
not adversely affect the efficacy and demonstrated that normal glucose
levels were achieved after 25 days of treatment and remained normal after
the therapy was stopped.



About HIP



Human proIslet Peptide (HIP) stimulates the differentiation of
pancreatic progenitor cells, which are present in the adult pancreas, into
new insulin-producing islets. Each new islet contains pools of beta cells
which make insulin. It is hypothesized that treatment with this therapeutic
will restore human pancreatic function without the use of stem cells.



About CureDM



The CureDM approach to restore new insulin-producing cells through
islet neogenesis can potentially reverse both type 1 and type 2 diabetes.
Patients with type 1 diabetes will require pretreatment with an immune
tolerance agent to protect new islets formed by HIP. CureDM, Inc., located
at the Lankenau Institute for Medical Research on the Lankenau Hospital
campus in Wynnewood, PA, is developing peptide therapeutics using a
platform that combines bioinformatics, proteomics and Human Genome sequence
data. This method has enabled the CureDM scientific team to determine the
proteins involved in, and probable mechanisms of islet neogenesis in
humans. For more information about CureDM, visit curedm.


CureDM, Inc.

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