Novel Hormone Identified that Augments Brown Fat, Increases Energy Expenditure, and
Reduces Obesity and Insulin Resistance
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact:
Dan Budwick, Pure Communications
(973) 271-6085
dan@purecommunicationsinc.com
Boston, Mass. - January 11, 2012
Ember
Therapeutics, Inc., a company harnessing breakthroughs in brown fat
biology and insulin sensitization to revolutionize the treatment of
metabolic disease, today announced the publication of key data
supporting its lead brown fat biology program in the journal Nature. The
paper details for the first time the discovery and identification of a
new hormone, irisin, which is present and identical in mice and humans
and has been shown to act on white fat cells in culture and in vivo to
stimulate UCP1 expression and brown fat development. The publication
outlines how even relatively short treatments of obese mice with irisin
caused an increase in energy expenditure with no changes in activity
levels or food intake, resulting in improved glucose homeostasis and
weight loss.
“We believe that innovative brown fat targets and
therapeutic pathways are key to developing new and effective treatments
for metabolic disorders and that, given these data, irisin could be a
therapeutic for human metabolic disease and other disorders that are
improved with exercise.
This research was led by
Bruce
Spiegelman, Ph.D., professor of cell biology, Dana-Farber Cancer
Institute, Harvard Medical School, and a co-founder of Ember, and was
funded by the National Institutes of Health. Ember recently entered into
an exclusive license agreement with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute for
this irisin technology and is optimizing and developing a proprietary
molecule designed to augment and activate the body’s brown fat.
“These data represent an important step forward in the emerging area of
brown fat biology as they mark the first identification and evaluation
of irisin, a naturally occurring hormone that has demonstrated the
ability to stimulate brown fat development in white fat cells,” said Dr.
Spiegelman. “We believe that innovative brown fat targets and
therapeutic pathways are key to developing new and effective treatments
for metabolic disorders and that, given these data, irisin could be a
therapeutic for human metabolic disease and other disorders that are
improved with exercise.”
In the Nature paper, researchers identify irisin as a distinct,
secreted portion of FNDC5, a membrane protein, and show that it provides
a signal from muscles to other tissues. Consequently, it was named
irisin by researchers after Iris, the Greek messenger goddess.
Importantly, irisin was shown to be present in both mouse and human
plasma, increase with exercise and demonstrate remarkable conservation
between species, with 100 percent identity between mice and humans. The
Nature publication also outlined that mice treated with irisin did not
display any adverse reaction and there was no apparent toxicity in any
major organ system. The paper, “A PGC1-a-dependent myokine that drives
brown-fat-like development of white fat and thermogenesis” is now
available
online.
“Ember is aggressively working to translate world-class brown fat
research, like these breakthrough irisin data, into peripherally-acting
treatments for metabolic diseases, including Type 2 diabetes and
obesity,” said Louis Tartaglia, Ph.D., president and interim chief
executive officer of Ember. “With these conditions at epidemic levels
worldwide, the need is more critical than ever for innovative, safe, and
effective treatments that could dramatically impact the lives of
patients.”
About Brown Fat
Unlike white fat, which stores energy,
brown
fat burns off caloric energy. While humans are born with large
amounts of brown fat, adults lose most of these brown fat stores to
maximize metabolic efficiency and enable them to survive when food is
not plentiful. However, in today’s abundant food environment, this
metabolic efficiency is actually a major contributor to metabolic
disease including obesity and Type 2 diabetes. Ember is developing a
broad pipeline of large and small molecule programs that augment and
activate the body’s brown fat, amplifying the natural ability to
efficiently burn fuel stores such as glucose and lipids to reduce stored
calories in the body.
About Diabetes and Obesity
While diabetes currently affects one in 10 U.S. adults, the Centers for
Disease Control forecasts that up to one in three American adults could
have diabetes by 2050. Experts attribute the rise in obesity nationwide
- about one-third of all U.S. adults are obese and another third are
overweight - as one of the major contributors to this growing epidemic.
The direct annual medical costs associated with Type 2 diabetes and
obesity are more than $265 billion in the U.S. alone.
About Ember Therapeutics, Inc.
Ember Therapeutics is a product-focused company harnessing breakthroughs
in brown fat biology and insulin sensitization to revolutionize the
treatment of metabolic disease. Today’s rising epidemic of obesity and
Type 2 diabetes coupled with the lack of innovation in the industry’s
metabolic disorder treatment pipeline underscores the need for novel,
peripherally-acting treatments with improved safety profiles. Ember’s
unique approach leverages recent research breakthroughs in brown fat
biology to develop a pipeline of proprietary large and small molecules
designed to amplify the body’s innate ability to efficiently burn fuels
like glucose. Ember’s expertise is also driving the development of the
next generation of highly selective insulin sensitizers that have robust
anti-diabetic effects, but lack the serious side effects of currently
approved insulin sensitizers. Ember is a private company launched in
2011 by renowned scientific founders, an experienced leadership team and
Third Rock Ventures. For more information, please visit
www.embertx.com.
