SIRNA LAUNCHES PROGRAM TO TREAT DIABETES WITH RNAi TECHNOLOGY

Sirna Therapeutics has announced that early preclinical research has shown promising results for the application of RNA interference (RNAi) technology in the treatment of diabetes.

Preclinical studies of Sirna's systemically delivered short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) at a dose of 30 mg/kg in mice demonstrated a 72 percent reduction of PTP-1B (phosphatase 1B), a validated target in diabetes that is associated with insulin resistance.

As an intracellular cytoplasmic protein, PTP-1B is a difficult-to-reach target for small molecule drugs and biologics. The catalytic pocket of the enzyme is large, making it difficult to synthesize a small chemical inhibitor. Further, because of its large family of congeners, specificity is difficult to obtain by small molecules. These developmental challenges make this target uniquely suitable for an RNAi approach.