Stem Cell-Derived Islet Therapies Target Type 1 Diabetes Challenges

In an interview with BioPharm International®, Steve Harr, MD, president and CEO of Sana Biotechnology (Sana), discusses advances in hypoimmune cell engineering and scalable cell therapy development. Dr. Harr, who previously worked at Juno Therapeutics during the early development of chimeric antigen receptor CAR T-cell (CAR-T) therapies, describes how his experience in immunology and transplant medicine shaped Sana’s approach to allogeneic cell therapies.

According to Dr. Harr, one of the major limitations in transplant medicine has been immune rejection. Historically, clinicians have relied either on long-term immunosuppression or autologous therapies derived from a patient’s own cells. While autologous approaches can reduce rejection risk, they remain difficult to scale and are not suitable for all therapeutic applications, he explains.

Dr. Harr emphasizes that Sana’s strategy focuses on overcoming these limitations through hypoimmune technology, which involves modifying transplanted cells so they can evade both adaptive and innate immune responses. This approach could enable broader use of allogeneic therapies without the need for chronic immunosuppressive treatment, he adds.

How could hypoimmune cell therapies change treatment for type 1 diabetes?

The company is applying this platform to type 1 diabetes, a disease in which the immune system destroys pancreatic beta cells responsible for insulin production, Dr. Harr says. Earlier transplantation approaches demonstrated that replacing pancreatic islets could restore glucose control, but scalability and immunosuppression remained major barriers.

“Our goal, and what we think we can do, is a single treatment into the muscle of the patient, and they will now … be able to live with normal blood sugars, no more insulin, and no immunosuppression,” Dr. Harr states.

He also notes that recent advances in stem cell manufacturing have improved the ability to generate pancreatic islet-like cells at scale. Sana aims to combine these advances with immune-evasive engineering to create a more durable and accessible therapeutic option.

Dr. Harr stresses that achieving scalable, immune-compatible cell therapies could significantly expand the reach of regenerative medicine and potentially transform treatment paradigms for chronic diseases such as type 1 diabetes.

About the speaker

Steve Harr, MD, President and CEO, Sana Biotechnology

Prior to co-founding Sana, Dr. Harr served as chief financial officer and head of Corporate Development for Juno Therapeutics until its acquisition by Celgene in early 2018. He was a member of the board of directors of Loxo Oncology prior to its acquisition by Eli Lilly and Company in early 2019. Dr. Harr also was a co-founder and member of the board of directors of JW Therapeutics, a cell therapy company in China. Prior to joining Juno, Dr. Harr was at Morgan Stanley, as managing director and head of Biotechnology Investment Banking, and previously as a biotech research analyst and co-head of global healthcare research. He obtained his MD from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He was an internal medicine resident at the University of California, San Francisco, and performed research at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.