Scientists At Hospital Saint-Vincent De Paul And Genset Advance The Understanding Of The Relationship Between Diabetes And Obesity
Paris, France — December 1, 2000
GENSET (NASDAQ: GENXY, Nouveau Marché: GENSET) reported today that Pr. Pierre BOUGNÈRES, Professor of Medicine, and Catherine LE STUNFF, Ph.D. (Saint-Vincent de Paul Hospital, Paris) will publish the results of a study revealing the relationship between diabetes and obesity. This study, conducted in collaboration with GENSET Corporation, the California subsidiary of the French biotechnology company GENSET S.A., will appear in the December 1st issue of Nature Genetics.
The studies covered by this publication are separate from GENSET's efforts on Famoxin, the company's lead protein in obesity. GENSET intends to publish the results of its preclinical work regarding Famoxin in the very near future.
Approximately ten percent of the population of Europe and the U.S.A suffers from obesity. Twenty percent of these people also develop diabetes 30 to 50 years after the onset of juvenile obesity. This type of diabetes, known as late onset or Type II, remains hidden in the interim because of its slow evolution and lack of symptoms. Type II diabetes is the most common form of diabetes in developed societies due to the significant increase in the number of obese people.
The two-year research program was conducted on more than 600 obese juveniles that were also insulin resistant. Insulin resistance plays an essential role in the development of Type II diabetes. While these subjects produce higher levels of insulin in response to their excess body fat, there is a substantial difference in the amount of insulin that is overproduced by the pancreas; some subjects make up to ten times more insulin than others. The goal of the study was to identify the mechanism responsible for these genetic differences.
The present study establishes a role for DNA sequence variations located on chromosome 11 and specifically in a region known to control insulin production. These DNA variations, known as the VNTR for Variable Number of Tandem Repeats, exists in either a long or short form. This study has determined that obese patients possessing the short form of the VNTR tend to produce higher levels of insulin than those with the long form.
This finding has important implications for both the diagnosis and the treatment of Type II diabetes. It will enable doctors to predict which young obese subjects are at risk for developing Type II diabetes. In addition, it paves the way toward understanding the molecular mechanisms regulating insulin production which will aid in the development of new treatments for Type II diabetes.
GENSET is a genomics company committed to generating a pipeline of drug candidates for the treatment of central nervous system and metabolic disorders. GENSET's integrated technology platform combined with ongoing genomic association studies will continue to identify and characterize potential drug targets and drug response markers for these disorders. By relying upon the expertise accumulated through various alliances with pharmaceutical partners and its portfolio of genomic patents, GENSET now intends to pursue and validate novel drug targets and candidates for its own account. GENSET has already discovered a lead protein candidate in the obesity field named Famoxin and is pursuing their research with a view to develop Famoxin into a drug. News releases by GENSET are available on the company's web site at genxy.com.
Contacts:
GENSET
André PERNET, President & CEO
+331 55 04 59 00
HOPITAL SAINT-VINCENT DE PAUL
Pr. Pierre BOUGNERES, Professor of Medicine
+331 40 48 80 82 |
