Developing products for early diagnosis and treatment of type I diabetes and other autoimmune diseases will be the focus of Portman Pharmaceuticals, a new Israeli/US company which was established by the Yeda Research and Development Co of the Weizmann Institute of Israel and the Portman Group of the USA.
Portman hopes that a diagnostic kit based on Weizmann Institute research will be the first product from the new company, and make it possible to screen children for juvenile diabetes from infancy through school age and beyond. The illness can currently be diagnosed only after the immune system has destroyed large amounts of the insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas and caused a life-threatening drop in insulin levels.
A possible new treatment will be aimed at preventing immunological attack on beta cells and could represent a cure for the disease. Both the treatment and the diagnostic will utilize technology based on the detection and manipulation of peptide antigens located on the surface of beta cells and targeted by the immune system.
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