In this time of great uncertainty, there is some exciting news out of Europe. Innodia, a partnership between public and private entities working together to fund research aimed at biomarker discovery and the prevention of type 1 diabetes (T1D), received an additional €12 million in funding from the European Commission, JDRF and the Helmsley Charitable Trust. Led by JDRF-funded researcher, Professor Chantal Mathieu, M.D., Ph.D., this funding means this critical project, called Innodia Harvest, can begin.

Innodia began in 2015 as a collaboration between the leading charitable funders of T1D research, JDRF, the Helmsley Charitable Trust, The European Commission, and several pharmaceutical companies. In the years since, the consortium has grown to include 40 partners from around Europe and the world.

“Innodia Harvest will build on the success of Innodia and leverage Innodia’s network of clinical trial centers and world-renowned experts to expand on previous biomarker work and conduct clinical trials in close collaboration with people with T1D and family members,” said Jeannette Soderberg, Ph.D., JDRF Associate Director, European Research. “In this very important public private partnership, we will be able to test new therapies on large European platform using an EMA endorsed trial protocol, ultimately in the hope to provide the T1D community with a preventive therapy.”

Delaying and preventing the onset of T1D is a key part of JDRF’s research portfolio, and identifying biomarkers that indicate T1D in at-risk individuals is paramount to achieving that goal. Innodia Harvest will build on the work that began in 2016 through biomarker validation.

Additionally, this new tranche of funding allows Innodia Harvest to start clinical trials in 2020, bringing preventative therapies one step closer to fruition. These two clinical trials take different approaches to arresting the progression of T1D; one is an immune therapy led by industry and the other is a beta cell therapy driven by academia. This diverse approach exemplifies JDRF’s strategy of pursuing several plans of attack to make the biggest impact in the shortest amount of time.

Learn more about the additional funding at the Innodia website.