Potential cures and treatments
Therapies aiming to restore endogenous insulin production.
Approaches across cell replacement, immune protection, gene editing, and regeneration — each scored 0–100 against published, category-specific criteria, including insulin independence, durability, immunosuppression burden, and clinical maturity. Every row shows where it sits in the pipeline, when and where it may be available, and the headline result. Expand for the full scorecard and primary sources.
Closest to a functional cure. Lab-grown islet cells infused into the liver — the strongest cure proof of concept yet.
Pipeline
Available
Timeline in flux
Where
US · EU trials
Headline result
83% insulin-free at 1 year
A cure without anti-rejection drugs — unproven. Stem-cell islets gene-edited to be invisible to the immune system — designed to need no anti-rejection drugs. Not yet tested in humans.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Where
US (platform)
Headline result
Drug-free 14 mo (n=1) — donor islets, not SC451
A real cure, for a lucky few. Islet cells from deceased donors, infused into the liver — the first approved cell therapy for T1D.
Pipeline
Available
Available now
Where
US (FDA 2023)
Headline result
First FDA-approved cell therapy
Drug-free by design; very early. An ultrathin, retrievable film pouch that protects islet cells under the skin.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Where
Canada (Phase 1)
Headline result
Non-fibrotic at 4 mo (human explant)
The trial stopped; the programme did not — but it is back to preclinical. CRISPR-cloaked islet cells designed to survive without immunosuppression. The Phase 1 was terminated, and the successor, CTX213, has not reached humans.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Where
No trial open (preclinical)
Headline result
Trial halted; successor CTX213 preclinical
Solves encapsulation's oxygen problem — in rodents. A sealed islet implant that makes its own oxygen, so the protected cells don't suffocate.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Where
Lab (mice and rats)
Headline result
90+ days drug-free (in rodents)
Islets that last for years — and drugs that last just as long. A retrievable under-the-skin pouch that keeps donor islets alive for years, with standard anti-rejection drugs.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Where
Phase 1/2 trial (Chicago)
Headline result
8 of 12 insulin-free — all on immunosuppression
An old drug in a human body — if it really can be re-dosed. A human version of a T-cell-depleting drug that already works once, built so it can be given again.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Where
Trials only — US, UK, EU, AU, NZ
Headline result
Phase 2b recruiting worldwide
The next real shot at drug-free islets — still entirely in mice. Off-the-shelf stem-cell islets edited to dodge T cells, NK cells and antibodies, aiming to need no anti-rejection drugs. No human has been dosed.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Where
US (preclinical)
Headline result
Drug-free by design — mouse data only, IND not yet filed
The strongest human regeneration signal so far — from five people. An oral pill that takes the brake off beta-cell growth — with this category's biggest human C-peptide gain, from a very small, uncontrolled trial.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Where
US (trial)
Headline result
+52% C-peptide at 12 weeks (n=5)
Repeated Bacillus Calmette-Guerin vaccination repurposed as immune/metabolic therapy for established T1D.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
A clear lesson in what doesn't work yet. Encapsulated stem-cell islets — proved safe drug-free, but the cells did not produce enough insulin.
Pipeline
Available
Discontinued
Headline result
Discontinued, Mar 2025
A macroencapsulation device that addresses encapsulation's classic weakness — oxygen starvation — by building in a refillable oxygen tank that is topped up daily.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Where
EU · OTHER
Fibrosis solved in monkeys; the cells inside still fade. An alginate capsule laced with a chemokine that repels attacking T cells and recruits protective ones.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Where
Lab (mice and monkeys)
Headline result
6 months drug-free (in monkeys)
First-in-human xenotransplant program using encapsulated neonatal pig islet cells for adults with unstable T1D and repeated severe hypoglycemia despite closed-loop therapy.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
A dialysis-like procedure that circulates a person's blood through a device where their immune cells are briefly co-cultured with cord-blood-derived stem cells, then returned — aim
Pipeline
Available
Years away
This approach takes a person's own regulatory T cells (Tregs) — the immune cells that normally keep autoimmunity in check — grows them into the billions in a lab, and infuses them
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Regrow your own cells — still in the lab. Drugs that coax the body to regrow its own insulin-producing cells instead of transplanting new ones.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Where
US (early)
Headline result
4–7× beta-cell growth (in lab)
A pharma retreat rehomed as a startup's flagship. Rodent data only. Bioprinted islet tissue, immune-cloaked and immune-shielded, designed to need no anti-rejection drugs. It has never been in a human — and the assets got here because Novo Nordisk quit.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Where
Canada (platform)
Headline result
Preclinical, rodent-only — no IND, no trial
Her own cells — and full immunosuppression. The famous "cured with her own cells" case. She was already on anti-rejection drugs.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Where
China (trial)
Headline result
Phase 1 recruiting (n=10)
A one-time gene therapy that turns a person's own thigh muscle into a glucose-responsive insulin factory.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Where
US
GLP-1 receptor drugs — the semaglutide/tirzepatide family now famous for type 2 diabetes and weight loss — also protect and amplify beta cells in lab models.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Where
US · UK · EU · CA · AU · JP
Kill the attackers, don't hide from them — a good idea that has never met a human. Microgels that make attacking T cells self-destruct at the graft site, aiming for tolerance in one spot instead of drugs everywhere.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Where
Lab (non-human primates)
Headline result
6+ months in monkeys — on 3 months of rapamycin, never insulin-free
Remygen is Diamyd Medical's controlled-release oral form of GABA, a molecule that in lab and animal studies coaxes beta cells to multiply and calms islet inflammation.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Early-stage; watch this space. Stem-cell-derived islets in an early trial for severe, long-standing T1D.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Where
China (trial)
Headline result
Phase 1/2a recruiting
Real idea, real grants, no human evidence yet. Immune-cloaked stem-cell islets with built-in sensors that report whether the graft is alive. Funded, animal-stage, and a long way from a person.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Where
US (Berkeley, CA)
Headline result
Discovery stage — no IND, no trial, no human data
An in-the-body gene therapy that aims to regrow insulin-making capacity without any transplant.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Where
US
A repurposed oral immunomodulator best known as the multiple-sclerosis drug Tecfidera, now being tested in Chinese phase 3 studies to see whether it can preserve C-peptide in adult
Pipeline
Available
On the horizon
Promising idea, first-in-human, and open only to a rare genotype. Your own regulatory T cells, re-engineered to call off the attack on your beta cells.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Where
US (trial)
Headline result
Phase 1 recruiting
A repurposing hypothesis around denosumab, the RANKL-targeting osteoporosis drug, to protect or improve beta-cell function in early T1D.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Very early; little to show yet. Perinatal-tissue cells infused into the pancreas just after a new diagnosis.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Where
US (trial)
Headline result
Phase 1/2a recruiting
A first-in-human gene-therapy program using a person's own CD34+ hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells, modified ex vivo with a lentiviral vector to express PD-L1 and re-establis
Pipeline
Available
Years away
A cautionary tale, not a contender — bought, then buried in silence. Big pharma bought an encapsulation platform, promised a trial in 2024, and has said nothing since.
Pipeline
Available
Not in trials
Where
Nowhere — no trial exists
Headline result
Preclinical, dormant
Very early — but a genuinely different delivery route. iPSC islets grown into a sheet and implanted under the skin, not infused into the liver.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Where
Japan (trial)
Headline result
Phase 1/1b, recruitment closed
The most complete answer to immunosuppression anyone has — in mice. It has never reached a human with T1D. Teach the immune system to read the donor as self — then stop the drugs altogether.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Where
Nowhere — no human T1D trial exists
Headline result
100% of chimeric mice cured. 0 humans with T1D treated.
Allogeneic iPSC-derived pancreatic islet cells being tested in an early exploratory China study for diabetes with hypoglycemia unawareness or severe hypoglycemic events.
Pipeline
Available
Years away
A pre-IND stem-cell-derived islet replacement program for insulin-dependent T1D, which NewcelX plans to pair with Eledon's anti-CD40L antibody tegoprubart in a calcineurin-inhibito
Pipeline
Available
Years away
A personalized immune-tolerance vaccine made from a person's own dendritic cells loaded with proinsulin peptide, being tested by City of Hope in a small phase 1 T1D safety/manufact
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Seraxis SR-02 is allogeneic pancreatic endocrine cell clusters grown from a proprietary stem-cell line and implanted into the omentum (the fatty apron in the abdomen), where they a
Pipeline
Available
Years away
Where
US
Scores are a transparent 0–100 weighted average of published criteria — higher means closer to a durable cure for more people. Living with T1D, Preventing and Trials are ranked the same way. Science journalism, not medical advice.