Showcasing new diabetes targets

While much of the attention at last week’s American Diabetes Association meeting was focused on late-stage products targeting DPP-4 and GLP-1, companies also presented early data on new targets, including adiponectin receptor 2 and eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E binding protein 2 from Isis Pharmaceuticals Inc. and connective tissue growth factor from Fibrogen Inc.

ISIS’s data from its antisense pipeline included a duo of gene targets for diabetes: adiponectin receptor 2 (AdipoR2), a receptor for adiponectin that was recently cloned, and eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E (elF-4E) binding protein 2...