Imagine the demand for a vaccine that prevents acne and watch once-spotty teenagers strut the halls of their high schools with their heads held high. Imagine re-growing lost teeth in a lab and watch once-toothless hockey players retire to the golf courses with a full set of real teeth in their mouths.

Biotech searches for cures to the most lethal killers but some businesses see opportunities in crafting solutions for non-infectious diseases—solutions that may not change the world but can make life better for individuals.

Tackling diabetes
With diabetes and obesity rates climbing, Saskatchewan-based biotechnology company DiaMedica has set out to develop products for those living with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. As other companies looked for molecules to treating diabetes, DiaMedica’s co-founder, Dr. Wayne Lautt, a liver physiologist at the University of Manitoba, investigated how damaging the vagus nerve, the nerve connecting the brain to the liver, can influence glucose and insulin levels.

“We actually think that the underlying cause of Type 2 diabetes is the vagus nerve’s function from the brain to the liver,” says Rick Pauls, President and CEO, DiaMedica.

In 2007, a jury of independent international life sciences venture capitalists selected DiaMedica as one of the top 10 life science companies in Canada. Windhover Information also recently selected DiaMedica as one of the 2011 Top 10 Most Interesting Cardiovascular/Metabolic Projects to Watch for strategic partnerships.

DiaMedica’s lead product, the DM-199, a human recombinant protein, was discovered after a proof of concept phase two trial. “We did a proof of concept phase two trial, and we saw a significant drop in glucose levels,” says Pauls. When researchers delved further they discovered that what was being released from the liver is what they now call the DM-199 protein, a naturally occurring protein in the human body.

“What we discovered is that taking our compound half an hour before a meal and within four hours of the meal could reduce the amount of sugar in the body by almost half,” says Pauls. DiaMedica also developed and tested DM-204, a monoclonal antibody. Pauls says the data from the DM-204 test was even more impressive than for the DM-199 test. “We’re seeing an incredible drop in glucose levels and concurrently a major drop in high blood pressure,” says Pauls.

The biggest complication of diabetes is high blood pressure. A lot of the drugs are pulled from the market because they raise blood pressure. “The bar is set so high for getting a drug approved for Type 2 diabetes because of the cardiovascular risk,” says Pauls.

Dr. Diane Finegood, an expert in diabetes and a professor in the Department of Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology at Simon Fraser University, suggests another area where biotechs can make inroads into diabetes care is to investigate weight loss maintenance “I’m a person who lost about 35 per cent of my body weight a number of years ago,” says Finegood. “It’s extremely challenging to keep it off and people don’t want that message to go out there because you don’t want to discourage people from attempting to lose weight.”

6 new ways to look good and feel good "To grow old is to lose everything,” writes American poet Donald Hall. The mind begins to fail and the body begins to slow. By 2031, all baby boomers will have reached the age of 65. A rapidly aging population has spurred the development of new applications to develop products that support whole body health and wellness including the re-growth of hair and teeth.

Skin health 1.
It is every teenager’s dream: the development of an acne vaccine. Say so long to cakey cover up and a washroom shelf stocked with drug store scrubs and lotions. Sanofi Pasteur recently acquired the worldwide license for a vaccine designed to neutralize the toxins of Propionibacterium acnes, a skin bacteria highly associated with the development of acne. Sanofi will collaborate with Dr. Eric Huang, Associate Professor School of Medicine, Division of Dermatology at the University of California, San Diego, and his associates to bring the product to the $3-billion (USD) worldwide market. “These toxins are the sources of inflammation. This approach will suppress the source of acne inflammation without disrupting the status of P. acnes as a commensal bacterium in the human micro flora,” says Huang.

Hair health 2.
The range of products and therapies for hair loss include creams, sprays, and of course, surgery. Hair transplants can be off-putting because of the invasive nature of the surgery. RepliCel Life Sciences Inc. in British Columbia is developing an autologous cell-based procedure that could potentially be the first minimally invasive hair loss solution. Founders Dr. Kevin McElwee and Dr. Rolf Hoffmann are scientists in hair biology, hair growth and dermatology. In the early 2000s, they discovered that dermal sheath cup cells have the ability to initiate cellular growth of mature hair follicles in animals. RepliCel is now developing this discovery as a potential successful treatment for hair loss in humans.

“We are currently in our first-in-man clinical trials and expect to release results in the first quarter of 2012,” says Tammey George, Director of Communications at RepliCel. Phase one trials will test the hypothesis that isolating and replicating the autologous dermal sheath cup cells and injecting the cells back into the patient will lead to follicular hair growth and the regeneration of existing quiescent hair follicles.

Dental health 3.
Being fitted for dentures could soon be a distant memory thanks to the successful growth and implantation of a tooth into a mouse’s mouth at Tokyo University of Science. Dr. Takashi Tsuji and his colleagues took teeth cells from mouse embryos and implanted the cells beneath the membrane that surrounds the kidney of an adult mouse. A molar developed two months later and the team implanted the tooth into the jaw of another mouse. Blood vessels and nerves developed within 30 days and the tooth performed as if it were the original tooth.

Cancer vaccines 4.
During flu season, people role up their sleeves to get vaccinated to lessen their chances of contracting the flu. While cancer is not considered an infectious disease like the flu or HIV, vaccines are being developed to stave off cancer. The market for preventative and therapeutic cancer vaccines is growing as research into cancer vaccination continues to uncover new knowledge.

Preventive cancer vaccines protect against cancer-causing viruses. For example, Merck manufactures Gardasil, which prevents human papillomavirus, a virus that causes cervical cancer. Therapeutic vaccines, such as Biovest International’s follicular lymphoma vaccine, boost the immune system and help stop cancer cells from growing and returning. The vaccine also strengthens the patient’s immune system and helps it recognize and eliminate cancerous lymphoma cells. Bavarian Nordic’s prostate cancer vaccine, Prostvac, is currently in Phase 3 trials and works the same way.

Celldex Therapeutics’ brain cancer vaccine, which is currently in phase two trials, increases the survival rate of patients with the cancer gene EGFRIII. Data from studies show patients who received the vaccine survived on average 24.6 months following their cancer diagnosis compared to the 15.2 months for the control group.

The push for therapeutic vaccines for cancers continues. Vaccines for lung and pancreas cancer are in late-stage clinical trials and could be available by 2020. Vaccines for melanoma, kidney, breast and other cancers are similarly under way.

New body parts 5.
Inside a lab at the Royal Free Hospital in London, England, a severed nose floats in a jar and a pair of ears bathes in a solution-filled Petri dish. Soon scientists will be able to grow more complex organs, such as hearts and brains, thanks to a new technology.

Professor Alexander Seifalian of the University College of London and Professor Paolo Macchiarini of Karolinska University Hospital, have developed a nanocomposite polymer material to create the world’s first synthetic windpipe. A scaffold is coated in the novel polymer, which has microscopic pores that absorb the patient’s stem cells and allows the scaffold to grow into the new body part.

In June 2011, Macchiarini and his colleagues at Karolinska transplanted the synthetic windpipe into a patient with late-stage tracheal cancer. The patient’s body accepted the transplant because his own stem cells were used to seed the scaffold. With a regular transplant, the body can reject the foreign organ. The stem cells were left to grow on the scaffold in a bioreactor designed by Seifalian and Macchiarini for two days before being transplanted into the patient.

Advances in stem cell research are furthering the possibility of organ regeneration. At the Genome Institute of Singapore and the Institute of Molecular Biology, scientists found that the only stem cells to form alveoli, the tiny air sacs in the lung that repair damaged lung tissue, are distal airway stem cells. Frank McKeon who led the team at the Genome Institute says that in mice infected with a strain of H1N1 damaged lung tissue repaired itself in three months. The distal airway stem cells multiplied and replaced the damaged alveoli. This discovery may lead to novel treatments for respiratory diseases as well as for lung cancer, which is the leading cause of cancer death in Canadian men and women.

Asthma 6.
An estimated three million Canadians live with asthma, a chronic inflammatory disease that affects the airways. Asmacure Ltée., a biopharmaceutical company based in Quebec, uses nicotinic acetylcholine receptor agonists to treat inflammatory diseases. Research has shown that nicotine agonists can reduce lung inflammation. The lead compound, ASM-024, is a “novel molecular entity” and uses novel nicotinic acetylcholine receptor agonists to treat asthma. The compound is currently in phase two trials.