Ok, first, it only applies to Type 2 diabetes.
In a remarkable medical breakthrough, Chinese scientists have successfully cured a patient of type 2 diabetes through an innovative cell therapy approach.
Second, it was done on a case-by-case basis. Each person has their own therapy tailored for them. This does not appear to be a mass-solution.
The groundbreaking treatment involved transplanting lab-grown replicas of the patient’s own insulin-producing islet cells into their body. This ingenious approach effectively restored the patient’s pancreatic islet function, enabling the body to regulate blood sugar levels naturally without external intervention.
From the linked article:
According to a South China Morning Post report, the patient underwent the cell transplant in July 2021.
…
The new therapy involves programming the patient’s peripheral blood mononuclear cells, transforming them into “seed cells” to recreate pancreatic islet tissue in an artificial environment. This approach leverages the body’s regenerative capabilities, an emerging field known as regenerative medicine.
Yeah I don’t see mention in the article of (so far) any observable reaction from the US pharma industry. It’s maybe reasonable as conjecture but not something we can claim as a fact.
it was done on a case-by-case basis. Each person has their own therapy tailored for them. This does not appear to be a mass-solution.
I’m not sure what you are expecting for something to be considered a cure? What they are describing is a treatment procedure which uses the patient’s own tissue. How does that make it case-by-case?
Because you can’t pack it up in a box and ship it to just anyone. They have to make it specifically for you. Hence case-by-case.
I see you’re describing a case-by-case basis, but I’m still failing to see how it’s case-by-case. /s
I reply to people on lemmy on a case-by-case basis. I decide how to eat food on a case-by-case basis. But if you give me a deck of cards and tell me to shuffle them, I generally do not decide how to shuffle on a case-by-case basis; it doesn’t matter whose cards they are.
This is actually becoming somewhat commonplace. For example, in many cutting-edge cancer therapies, blood is drawn from the patient, processed in tissue-culture suites on site to extract the patient’s immune cells and sensitize them to some marker expressed by their specific cancer cells, and then the modified immune cells are returned to the patient room and transfused back into their bodies. It’s not cheap per se but it’s something that most top-tier cancer centers can do, and to do the similar process of extracting stem cells, inducing them to transform into pancreatic islet cells, and transplanting those into the patient’s pancreas isn’t that big of a jump – and it’d be cheaper than a lifetime of insulin in any case. It also points the way towards treating other kinds of organ failure without the risk of rejection, too.
That’s not what case-by-case means. Wiktionary:
Separate and distinct from others of the same kind; treated individually.
Case-by-case implies that each treatment is different and is not generalisable; but the fact that they use a patient’s own tissue does not make each individual treatment different. If you want to extend the logic, you might call vaccination a case-by-case treatment as well, since they use different needles for each person.
The approach is generic. The implementation is case by case. But this is exactly the problem. When the implementation is generic, like a vaccine, then you can mass produce it and the costs go down.
As far as this seems, you can’t mass produce this solution. You can mass implement the approach, but that doesn’t really bring the cost down.
What is this medium blog nonsense with a nonsense headline?
The last time this was posted people pointed out this therapy isn’t new, as far as I remember.
This is blog spam. I saw no citations about any insulin companies being angry.
