This is real research data from the top international journal The New England Journal of Medicine. In the past, being diagnosed with diabetes, especially type 1 diabetes, was almost equivalent to a lifelong sentence of accompanying insulin. Today, top research teams worldwide are launching multidisciplinary efforts toward the ultimate goal of “cure.”

01 The Breakthrough Closest to Clinical Application

At present, the most attention-grabbing breakthrough on the path to curing diabetes comes from stem cell–regenerated islet transplantation therapy. The core logic of this technology is direct and powerful: to “replace” a patient’s islet β cell population with a batch that functions normally.

The global biopharmaceutical giant Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ VX-880 (also called zimislecel) therapy is the frontrunner in this field. The results from the completed Phase I/II clinical trials are encouraging.

Twelve patients with type 1 diabetes whose disease duration averaged over 20 years and who had nearly complete loss of islet function all recovered endogenous insulin secretion after treatment, and severe hypoglycemic events disappeared.

More importantly, 10 of these patients completely eliminated their dependence on exogenous insulin, and the remaining patients’ insulin doses were reduced by an average of 92%. The medical community refers to this as a “functional cure.”

02 Principles and Frontier Exploration of the New Therapy

These cutting-edge therapies do not follow a single path; scientists are using different “tools” to try to overcome the two fundamental challenges of immune rejection and cell sourcing.

The fastest-advancing allogeneic stem cell therapies are like "universal" transplants. They use "regenerative islets" cultivated in vitro from healthy donor cells or stem cells.

Their advantage is that they can be produced at scale in advance; the drawback is that after transplantation patients typically need long-term immunosuppressive drugs to prevent rejection.

To free patients from the constraints of immunosuppressants, more cutting-edge "immune-evasive" gene-editing therapies are emerging. For example, Sana (US)’s UP421 therapy knocks out key genes on islet cells that trigger immune rejection using gene-editing technology.

In the first human trial, the transplanted cells survived and functioned in the patient for 12 weeks without any immunosuppressants, demonstrating the possibility of being "invisible."

Meanwhile, CAR-T cell therapy, a technology that has shone in the field of oncology, has also been innovatively applied to diabetes treatment.

The Peng Min team at Tsinghua University has developed a long-lived CAR-T cell that can secrete GLP-1 (a glucose-lowering hormone) over an extended period. A single administration of this “living drug factory” can achieve long-term control of blood glucose and body weight in animal models, offering a novel approach to the treatment of type 2 diabetes.

To present this clearly, the table below summarizes the core characteristics and progress of these major technological approaches:

Therapy type

Core principles

Main advantages

Current stage/challenges

Allogeneic stem cell regenerative islet transplantation

(如VX-880)

(such as VX-880)

Cultivate healthy islet cells ex vivo and transplant them

Efficacy confirmed; patients have been able to discontinue insulin

In Phase III clinical trials

requires long-term immunosuppression

Gene-edited "immune-evasive" transplantation

(如UP421)

(e.g., UP421)

Editing cell genes to evade immune system attack

Hopeful to achieve without immunosuppression

Early clinical studies to verify safety and long-term effects

CAR-T cells as a delivery platform

Engineering T cells to secrete therapeutic proteins long-term

Single treatment, long-lasting efficacy

Preclinical studies (animal models), primarily targeting type 2 diabetes

03 Timeline for Clinical Implementation

So, when will these therapies that sound like science fiction become available to the general public?

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Combining information from multiple sources, a relatively clear timeline is emerging. For the most advanced therapy, VX-880, its developer Vertex Pharmaceuticals aims to submit a marketing application to regulators in the US, Europe, and elsewhere in 2026, assuming Phase III clinical trials proceed smoothly.

This means that as early as the end of 2026 or 2027, patients with type 1 diabetes in some countries may be able to use this groundbreaking therapy.

In China, a similar product developed by Professor Yin Hao’s team at Shanghai Changzheng Hospital, "Allogeneic Human Regenerative Islet Injection," received clinical trial approval in April 2025. Industry experts estimate that domestic products could be on the market within 3 to 5 years.

A more revolutionary gene-editing therapy that would not require immunosuppression is still in early clinical or preclinical stages. Demonstrating that cells can remain permanently "invisible" in the human body and function stably will require additional time for validation, and widespread application may still need 5 to 10 years or even longer of development.

04 Future Outlook: Different Cure Prospects

When we talk about "cure," we must recognize that the scientific connotations and implementation pathways differ for type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes.

For type 1 diabetes, the etiology is relatively clear — the immune system mistakenly destroys pancreatic β cells. Therefore, the goal of a cure is "replace + protect": that is, replace the destroyed cells with new healthy ones and ensure they are no longer attacked. All current regenerative islet transplantation and gene editing research are mainly centered on this goal, and the prospects are clearer.

For the more common type 2 diabetes, the situation is much more complex. It involves multiple factors such as insulin resistance and relative beta-cell insufficiency. Therefore, the pathways to "remission" or "reversal" are more varied.

In addition to the cell therapies described above, drug research aimed at promoting pancreatic islet β-cell regeneration (such as mulberry twig total alkaloids discovered by Chinese researchers), repair strategies based on the theory of cellular autophagy, and others are being actively explored, with the goal of fundamentally improving or even restoring patients’ metabolic function.

The pace of scientific exploration has never stopped. From the discovery of insulin “saving lives” a century ago to today’s use of stem cells to “rebuild the pancreas” in pursuit of a cure, humanity’s war against diabetes is entering a whole new stage.

Although the most cutting-edge therapies may initially be costly (similar therapies abroad are estimated to cost up to the million-dollar level), as technologies mature and scale up, costs will inevitably decline.

More importantly, they point the way: the label of “lifelong disease” is being gradually lifted by the power of science. For the hundreds of millions of people with diabetes worldwide, this in itself is the brightest ray of hope.

Forwarding to everyone—hope you first control your blood glucose and prevent complications. Once a full cure is achieved, you will be freed from the shackles of high sugar!