Betting on betatrophin

Researchers at Harvard University have discovered a hormone that promotes pancreatic islet b cell proliferation in mice.¹ Evotec AG and Johnson & Johnson's Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. unit have rights to the molecule and plan to turn it into a preclinical type 2 diabetes candidate this year. However, the hormone's relevance to disease in humans needs to be fleshed out.

b Cells are the source of insulin, the hormone that controls blood sugar. b Cells die off in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes, albeit for different reasons-autoimmune destruction in the former, exhaustion in the latter...