arvo run..., page-3

Dia-B Tech rocket on insulin based patent
7/12/05 By: Stephen Blaxhall

Shares in Dia-B Tech Limited (DIA), rocketed almost 90% this morning after the group, which specialises in biotech research towards a new drug for diabetes, advised that it is filing a new provisional patent to cover a discovery in approaches to treatment of diabetes. The patent covers a mechanism whereby insulin in its native complex state is dispersed more rapidly to make a much more efficient “fast-acting” form of the single molecule in the treatment of diabetes.

Dr Wooldridge said that the Company was unable to divulge full details of this latest patent as any release could jeopardise the company’s patent protection as it passes through the provisional application phase.

“We believe this discovery is a totally new concept in understanding how insulin normally works and that an abnormality in this process may lead to type 2 diabetes. It is certainly a very significant event in our short history,” commented Dr Wooldridge.



The International Diabetes Institute, working with the International Diabetes Federation, has identified diabetes as the world’s fastest growing disease, with an estimated one million Australians as sufferers, and with the disease expected to have more than 320 million worldwide sufferers by 2025, up from the estimated 190 million in 2003.

Insulin forms into groups of 6 insulin molecules (hexamers) that are held together (or stabilised) by Zinc. However, only single insulin molecules (monomers) bind to insulin receptors in the body.

So for the insulin to work, the hexamers have to break up (or disperse) to provide monomers.

Dispersal of insulin hexamers to monomers occurs naturally in the body, but when diabetics inject insulin it can take some time for the hexamers to disperse, so the insulin is considered “slow acting”.

Some fast-acting insulin analogues that have been altered structurally so that they do not form hexamers are already available.

These are synthetically produced, and are useful for diabetics to take close to mealtimes when insulin is needed to act quickly signal to the body to take up glucose.

What Dia-B has discovered is a new combination in which hexamers of unmodified (ie natural) insulin are rapidly dispersed, so making “fast-acting” compositions of natural insulin for the treatment of diabetes.

At 1125 AEDT Dia-B Tech were up 6.7 at 14.5c