Interesting diabetes breakthrough

Washington University School of Medicine researchers have cured diabetes in mice — for at least nine months. They converted human stem cells into insulin-producing cells and injected them into the mice.

“These mice had very severe diabetes with blood sugar readings of more than 500 milligrams per deciliter of blood — levels that could be fatal for a person — and when we gave the mice the insulin-secreting cells, within two weeks their blood glucose levels had returned to normal and stayed that way for many months.”

Next step: Testing the treatment on other animals over longer periods of time.

Fine, we’ll do it ourselves

Concerned about the supply of drug components from China, Sanofi said it’s going to launch a new company, based in France, to manufacture and supply ingredients to drug makers. Much of this “new” company will include existing Sanofi-owned ingredient makers.

While inventing and developing new drugs is a lucrative, high-margin business, manufacturing the chemical components of those medicines can be a commodities market, where prices can swing and shortages can occur.

Drug shortages on the mind

Speaking of drug shortages, the FDA says it has identified 20 drugs in danger of shortage — their ingredients come only from China. It hasn’t released what those drugs are, but rest assured, citizen, the agency is working with manufacturers and everything is under control. (By the way, sources inside the FDA said the list is actually 150 drugs.)

Another opioid settlement

Generic-drug maker Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals has agreed (tentatively) to file for bankruptcy and pay $1.6 billion for its role in the opioid epidemic.

Some other companies in the Big Opioid Lawsuit — Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson, and McKesson — have made settlement offers but those “have yet to be accepted by an overwhelming majority of plaintiffs.”

Forget what you know about bile

It doesn’t all come from the liver. Some important bile acids, it’s just been discovered, “are not produced by our enzymes; they’re made by microbes in our gut.” Yep, that gut microbiome at it again.

[Researchers] showed that microbes in the gut, members of the microbiome, produce unique bile acids by conjugating the cholesterol backbone with myriad other amino acids.

What’s in a name? (A lot)

When it comes to medication, if you give a drug a different name and say it’s for a different condition, you can charge 800% more for it.

Supprelin LA was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2007 for central precocious puberty and has a list price of $37,300. Vantas was approved by the FDA in 2004 for late-stage prostate cancer and has a list price of $4,400.

Both of these implants contain 50 milligrams of histrelin acetate, and both are made by the same company.

Juul news

Georgia is among 39 states that have announced they are jointly investigating the company. (That’s Attorney General Chris Carr’s release. The news story is here.)

The 39-state coalition is investigating JUUL’s marketing and sales practices, including targeting of youth, claims regarding nicotine content and statements regarding risks, safety and effectiveness as a smoking cessation device.

Juul is reportedly going to ask the FDA for approval of a “locked” vaping pen that would only allow people 21 or over to use it*.

The CDC just released the latest number of U.S. cases of EVALI — the lung disease caused by vaping: 2,807 hospitalized and 68 deaths, including six in Georgia. (Georgia, in fact, leads the nation in vaping-disease deaths.)

* Estimated time before a workaround is spread on Reddit: 32.4 seconds

Gut bacteria, lung damage

Could pulmonary arterial hypertension be caused by … gut bacteria? Maybe so. If you have PAH, there’s an 83 percent chance you’ll have a particular combination of bacteria in your gut. Given that PAH affects the lungs, this is a finding that’s gonna need a bit more research.

The Long Read: “Yet Another Microbiome” edition

The gut has a microbiome. The skin has a microbiome. And so, apparently, does the reproductive system. And from bedbugs to ants to birds to primates, that reproductive biome seems to have a significant effect on courtship, mating, and even protecting infants.

The results suggested that bacteria, reproduction, and mate selection may be working hand-in-hand. In humans, a similar relationship appears to play out, too — E. Coli bacteria, which can be harmful to human health, has been shown to damage sperm’s mobility and quality.