I can extract side effects.

Chapter 513 The dawn of a complete cure for diabetes
Eagle Country, Minnesota.

Freeman's head was steaming with heat, and he lay in the jacuzzi with his eyes closed to rest his mind, and the muscle fatigue all over his body was slightly relieved.

As a professional athlete, he has to perform high-intensity exercise every day to maintain his physical fitness.

After soaking for half an hour, he got up, wrapped his bathrobe tightly, and returned to the living room.

At this time, the phone rang, and after he connected, he didn't say a few words, and his face suddenly became excited.

"What? You applied for the test qualification of oral insulin for me?"

"Great, I'll be there tomorrow morning."

After hanging up the phone, Freeman was very excited.

Just now, the private doctor called and said that Sanqing Group's oral insulin has finally started clinical trials in Eagle Country. This new drug has excellent curative effect and is easy to take. It is very suitable for athletes like him.

In the future, you only need to take tablets orally every day to achieve the effect of taking insulin and controlling blood sugar.

No need to stick an insulin pump on your belly again.

Thinking of this, Freeman looked at the insulin pump on his body with some disgust.

It is too inconvenient for high-intensity exercise to carry such a thing with you all the time.

Although he is used to it, it is best to take it off.

Thinking that he would be able to use oral insulin tomorrow, a moment of relief welled up in his heart, and he walked briskly into the bedroom.

This thing probably won't last long.

At the age of 21, he was diagnosed with type [-] diabetes just after he became a skier.

That was the first time he had heard of the disease, and when the doctor advised him to end his skiing career and change jobs, it was like a bolt from the blue, which made him very depressed.

Fortunately, Freeman has a tenacious personality and did not compromise with his fate. Instead, he cooperated with the doctor in active treatment, injected insulin strictly according to the doctor's orders, adjusted his diet according to his exercise training, tested his blood sugar, and regularly screened for complications every year.

Through a series of strict measures, he finally managed to control his illness, maintain a high level of competitive physical fitness, and complete a reversal of fate.

Just 2 years after his diabetes diagnosis, he won a gold medal in ski racing at the Winter Olympics.

As of today, as a diabetic athlete, he has won multiple gold medals and is known all over the world.

People see his achievements and praise him, but no one knows that he checks blood sugar five or six times a day, injects insulin every day, and wears an insulin pump 24 hours a day.

He has always longed deeply that diabetes can be completely cured.

If it doesn't work, at least he can take insulin orally, so he doesn't need to hang a pigtail-like insulin pump on his body.

Fortunately, the development of technology finally made him wait for this day.

Perhaps, the day when diabetes is completely cured is not far away.

Freeman has never felt more confident about it than he does today.

The next day, he went to the scheduled medical institution to start testing the medicine.

After some experience, I can't help being surprised and happy.

This oral insulin is really as easy to use as he imagined.

No, even better.

You only need to calculate the dosage and take the medicine on time before meals every day, and your blood sugar will always remain stable.

No longer have to endure the sudden alarm sound of the insulin pump, no longer have to keep an eye on the rate of the insulin pump, worrying about the interruption of insulin infusion.

Like a bird regaining its wings and soaring high in the sky, he once again experienced the feeling of being free.

There are many people like Freeman involved in drug trials.

They realized the benefits of oral insulin in the test drug, and naturally they disliked insulin injection in every possible way.

When the experiment was over, everyone felt disappointed and a little unacceptable, wishing to buy this new drug in the pharmacy immediately.

It is a pity that the Phase III clinical trial requires a large number of samples and long-term clinical observation, and it cannot be marketed quickly in a short period of time.

Especially for this kind of chronic disease drug that needs to be taken for a long time, the patient's life is not in danger for the time being, and the same drug is also available on the market, with stricter requirements and longer time.

Even with the breakthrough fast-track application model, it will take half a year to a year to verify the safety of the drug on a large scale.

Even after it goes on the market, it has to continue to follow up the verification of the fourth phase of clinical trials. If there are any problems, it may be ordered to withdraw from the market at any time.

After such a set of clinical trials, the cost of funds is extremely high, tens of millions of dollars, and apart from pharmaceutical giants, few pharmaceutical companies can afford it.

This is why the successful development of a new drug is only the first step, and it is only half of the success if it reaches the third phase of clinical trials.

And it won't be considered a complete success until it goes public and sells well.

Even if most laboratories and small companies successfully develop a drug, they will not be able to afford the follow-up clinical expenses. They can only cooperate with large pharmaceutical companies in the development to ensure that the drug will last until it is marketed.

*******
Just when the reputation of oral insulin was slowly fermenting on the other side of the ocean.

Phase III clinical trials in China are also advancing simultaneously.

Weikang is very satisfied with the progress of this project.

"The next step is to proceed step by step. When the third phase of the clinical trial is completed, it will be launched next year at the earliest."

"It's not urgent, you can take your time."

The insulin farce of Eagle Country naturally spread to China, where it was scrambled to be rebroadcasted by various media. Everyone enjoyed watching a wonderful drama series with ups and downs and reversals.

Naturally, Wei Kang has also paid attention to this matter, and he feels ridiculous about it.

"Eagle Country is indeed a free country. No matter how bloody things can happen, fortunately, the final result is not bad."

"At least Eli Lilly was the first to admit it. The price of insulin has been greatly reduced. The burden of diabetic patients can finally be greatly reduced, and they can live a better life."

"Lilly is worthy of being a pharmaceutical giant, and its response is really fast. These old guys who can live well for more than 100 years are indeed old foxes, and there is no one to get along with."

"I just don't know if other insulin manufacturers will follow suit. If they insist on not lowering the price, the market will probably be carved up by Eli Lilly. I guess they are not so stupid. Sooner or later they will compromise and lower the price together."

"The pattern of the insulin market has been established. At least overseas, oral insulin will occupy the mid-to-high-end market. The price of injectable insulin has dropped sharply, and it has completely become a daily drug that the poor can afford. This is a great benefit for diabetics."

"The so-called science and technology promotes social development, which is probably the case."

"If the Big Three can complete the transformation and make efforts on hypoglycemic drugs, it's hard to say whether it's a blessing or a curse."

Wei Kang knew very well that Eli Lilly's price reduction was naturally based on the GLP-1 hypoglycemic drug.

It is the fine tradition of these veteran pharmaceutical giants to admit defeat, change the track and exert force, and never hang on a tree.

Diabetes itself is a complex chronic disease, and new treatment ideas and solutions emerge in an endless stream. As long as it is effective, it can be sold well.

Even hereditary diabetes is a multi-gene mutation, not a single gene inheritance, and what is inherited is not the disease itself, but the susceptibility to diabetes. Certain environmental factors must contribute to diabetes.

In general, the need for insulin therapy depends on the degree of insulin deficiency.

For patients with type 1 diabetes, insulin therapy is necessary, but for many patients with type [-] diabetes, insulin is only intensive treatment, they are not so dependent on insulin, and they can take hypoglycemic drugs such as GLP-[-] to improve.

After hundreds of years of development of hypoglycemic drugs, the types of drugs are rich and colorful, presenting a posture of a hundred flowers blooming, which cannot be monopolized by a single pharmaceutical company.

Sanqing currently has some hypoglycemic drugs, but only one or two of them, not the most popular category.

However, Weikang does not intend to join the crowded new track of GLP-1 receptor agonists.

As a technology-driven pharmaceutical group, the choice of research and development direction must be in line with its own technical field, and it cannot be like an investor who flocks to any hot track when it sees it.

It is a long-term solution to first consolidate the basic market of type I diabetes, and then combine its own advantages to deepen cultivation in this field.

Wei Kang has long planned for this, and his ultimate goal is to completely cure diabetes.

The reason why diabetes cannot be cured is closely related to the damage of islet cells, insulin resistance, and insulin secretion.

But in the final analysis, it is still a problem of islet cell damage.

Islet cells are highly differentiated cells that cannot replicate themselves and cannot regenerate once damaged, so they cannot secrete insulin normally.

Some other tissue cells, such as liver cells, have a low degree of differentiation, can replicate continuously, and have a strong regeneration ability.

When the liver is damaged, the liver can repair itself, so many liver problems can be restored to normal through drugs and maintenance, but the islet cells are powerless.

Many people with type [-] diabetes can regain their health by taking medicine and diet control if they only have problems with insulin resistance and secretion.

But if the islet cells are damaged, even if the blood sugar is well controlled, it may be necessary to take medicine for life, or even inject insulin all the time.

Needless to say, people with type I diabetes have already damaged most of the islet cells at the onset of the disease, and can only inject insulin for a lifetime to maintain their lives.

Since islet cells cannot regenerate, they can only be solved by transplantation after damage.

In fact, islet cell transplantation has always been a frontier topic in medicine.

Not only have many successful animal experiments, but even clinical trials have some successful cases.

There are even no obvious side effects. Most of the patients' condition has been relieved, and the amount of insulin injections has been significantly reduced. Some patients have even returned to normal life after transplantation, without taking medicine and injecting insulin.

The only problem is that islet cells come mainly from donated pancreas, which is a very limited source.

The duration of maintenance is also very limited. All patients undergoing cell transplantation will experience immune rejection after a few months, at most one to two years, and return to the state before transplantation, and the effect cannot be maintained permanently.

This technology needs to intermittently and continuously transplant islet cells to patients, which has not yet reached a mature stage in general, and the price of transplantation is also very expensive, so it cannot be used to treat a large number of diabetic patients.

These problems are not too big for Wei Kang.

Because he intends to use a new method, that is, islet stem cell transplantation for treatment.

The pluripotent stem cells of the human body can differentiate into islet cells. As long as these differentiated cells are extracted, the islet cells are cultured in vitro, and transplanted into the human body, insulin can be secreted normally and diabetes can be completely cured.

However, there are still many obstacles in using stem cell technology to reconstruct islet function. The techniques for extracting and isolating islet stem cells and inducing the maturation of insulin-secreting cells still need to be further improved.

There is a lack of consensus on how to adequately differentiate stem cells into islet cells.

In some studies, islet stem cells transformed from embryonic stem cells were transformed into teratomas when treating diabetic mice, which led to the disappearance of the hypoglycemic effect and caused great safety problems.

Sanqing already has the technology to differentiate stem cells into artificial blood, and has made a breakthrough in stem cell research.

This gave Wei Kang enough confidence. He believes that as long as he conducts in-depth research in this area, sooner or later he will be able to differentiate pluripotent stem cells into islet cells, and produce islet cells like blood for clinical use.

On that day, the treatment of diabetes will change dramatically, and every patient will benefit from it.

Diabetes, a disease of modern affluence that broke out due to the abundance of food, also has the hope of being completely cured.

"The road is long and long, and I will search up and down. It is so difficult to truly cure a disease."

Wei Kang sighed and said: "My generation of medical people can only burn their lives and devote themselves to it regardless of their own lives."

More and more drugs are being developed, but he feels that the burden on his shoulders is getting heavier.

If it is said that he was just the boss of a small pharmaceutical company at the beginning, he only wanted to develop a trump card drug like a cash cow, and he would not have to worry about money in his life.

As for how medical technology develops and how human technology advances, that's none of his business.

When the sky is falling, there is also a tall man holding it up. In the field of technology, there are scientists rushing to the forefront.

Then, at Sanqing's current state, as the light of human medicine, he has become the tallest person who rushes to the front.

The breakthroughs in many new technologies and the expansion of new fields all require his leadership and cannot be separated from the efforts of all Sanqing people.

His mentality has also undergone a great change, and money is no longer his most important thing.

It is replaced by a sense of social responsibility, which has virtually become his credo in life.

Sanqing should be responsible to the motherland, to the society, and more importantly, to the tens of thousands of patients.

If you want to wear a crown, you must bear its weight.

If the number one in an industry cannot be proactive and forge ahead, what vitality does the industry have?
In the past, the Huaxia pharmaceutical industry was just waiting to die, fighting desperately for a generic drug market.

There have never been results of original research drugs in any frontier field, and all the revenue is invested in sales, and the R&D department is dispensable.

Before the rise of Sanqing, there were Chinese giants in many industries, and they were all among the best in the world.

Only the pharmaceutical industry is still stagnant, without any improvement, not even an original drug that sells well all over the world.

If such an industry hadn't had Sanqing, it would be hard to imagine how it would have gotten to where it is today.

Wei Kang sighed, calmed down, clicked on the computer, and created a new project folder.

<Islet Stem Cell Transplantation Program>
Assignment of project personnel then begins.

After finishing this, he started to check the progress of other projects.

"Very well, several new drugs are progressing smoothly and have entered the third phase of clinical trials."

"The artificial heart project has recruited a ready-made team, completed personnel running-in and technology integration, and started research and development."

"With the cooperation of strong foreign aid, the biomimetic microneedle project has completed the nano-alloy material and is manufacturing the first batch of samples."

Looking at it, his eyes suddenly brightened.

"Not bad, the samples of artificial blood vessels have been prepared."

(End of this chapter)