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Vertex Pharmaceuticals said Friday that, over a year after receiving the company’s stem-cell therapy, two type 1 diabetes patients no longer need to take insulin injections and saw stark reductions in a biological marker of disease. 

The results, presented at the American Diabetes Association conference in San Diego, bolstered experts’ hopes that the treatment could provide a functional cure for some patients. In 2021, Vertex announced dramatic results from the first man to receive the treatment, but researchers cautioned it was just one person, who had only been followed for 90 days.

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“The data look as good as they could be,” said Jeanne Loring, a stem cell expert and professor emeritus at Scripps Research not involved in the work, in an email.

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