New study shows promising functional cure for Type 1 diabetes

It’s a development millions of people living with Type 1 diabetes never thought would happen. A new study is showing promising a functional cure for the life-long disease.

There is no known cause and to date, no cure for the disease that affects 2.1 million Americans, and more than nine million people worldwide. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition where the body’s immune system destroys the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. Upon onset, maintaining blood sugar becomes a lifelong job, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“I was diagnosed at 4-years-old. I remember starting kindergarten, and my teacher told me there’ll be a cure in 5 years,” said Carling Nolan, chapter director for Western Pennsylvania’s Breakthrough T1D. “Our T1D community heard that. And now here we are, 36 years later, we’re seeing a breakthrough actually put in place to cure this.”

The breakthrough is a study out of the University of Chicago working with the drug company Eledon. Doctors are transplanting donated islet cells to patients, which helps the pancreas produce insulin. The patients then take a new targeted immunosuppressant drug created by Eledon called Tegoprubart.

“Of the 10 patients that had been transplanted and were out sufficiently far, all of them were able to get off their daily insulin,” Eledon CEO David-Alexandre Goss said. “Importantly, of those 10 patients, nine of the 10 were also able to achieve normal blood sugar levels in about 60 days, which is very fast.”

Because of that success, the study is now moving into a second phase. Pennsylvanian Kate Lecker wants in. Doctors diagnosed her with T1D when she was 5.

“Type one, there’s just no consistency to it. I could do the same thing, eat the same thing, exercise exactly the same way, and have completely different outcomes, and it’s frustrating, and it’s just so unpredictable,” Lecker said.

The disease is so unpredictable that after years of managing her diabetes, Lecker recently developed a rare and debilitating allergy to insulin.

“Most people can wear [medical] devices, and because of the really amazing technologies out there, you can have a normal life,” Lecker said. “But if you have a severe insulin allergy, there’s just no way to get it in your body without having an allergic response, and it’s a struggle every day. So it really is going to save my life.”

Lecker wants these advancements to work not just for herself, but for her teenage daughter.

“My daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 when she was 9, thanks to genetics, I guess,” Lecker said. “But I’m excited for her that if she had to be diagnosed, it’s in these times, because she’s got just fantastic technology, but also these therapies will be possible in the future, and it may be an option versus a dream.”

Eledon has worked on the new drug Tegoprubart for six years and is humbled by its results so far.

“We’re grateful. We’re grateful for the support that the community has given us to date,” Goss said. “We look forward to continuing to work for the patients and to advancing Tegoprubart that one day, hopefully, the data will continue in the same trajectory, and we’ll be able to make it available to many, many more people around the world.”

For some Type 1 diabetics, like Nolan, it’s almost unbelievable to think that could happen.

“Just the idea of waking up and having a perfect blood sugar and feeling good all the time and not getting tired from high and low blood sugar, it’s huge, it’s everything,” Nolan said. “I’m going to have to think about what I’m going to do with all this free time when I’m not managing my type one diabetes.”

As for Lecker, she’s now officially on the transplant list. She said she’s carrying her phone everywhere, just waiting for that call to go to Chicago and get her transplant.

“I’ve talked to people who have had islet cell transplants, and they are alive and well and off insulin, and I can’t even put into words how exciting that’ll be,” Lecker said.

To date, 13 patients have gotten the transplant and are using Eledon’s Tegoprubart. All are doing well. The company hopes to take its findings to the FDA soon in hopes of getting the drug approved.

Eledon released this statement in its May earnings’ press release.

In March 2026, Eledon announced updated results from an ongoing investigator-led trial at the University of Chicago Medicine Transplant Institute evaluating tegoprubart in 12 adults with high-risk type 1 diabetes undergoing allogenic islet transplantation. All 10 patients who are more than four weeks post-transplant achieved 100% insulin independence. There were no signs of graft rejection or de novo donor-specific HLA antibodies and no evidence of nephrotoxicity, hypertension, or neurotoxicity, which are commonly associated with tacrolimus-based immunosuppression regimens, the current standard of care.

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