Bacterially Produced Human Insulin Given Therapeutically

In mid-December, five Wichita, Kan, patients with newly diagnosed diabetes became the first humans to be treated with a substance produced by recombinant DNA technology. The five began therapy with insulin produced by bacteria into which the human insulin gene had been introduced. The recombinant insulin (also known as biosynthetic insulin), which is being produced by Eli Lilly and Co, had previously been administered to healthy human volunteers in the United States, Great Britain, Greece, and West Germany and found to be free of toxic effects. Phase II testing of the substance is now being carried out under the supervision of Richard Guthrie, MD, professor and chairman of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Kansas School of Medicine in Wichita; Arthur Krosnick, MD, of the Mercer Medical Center in Trenton, NJ; and Frederick Whitehouse, MD, a former president of the American Diabetes Association who is with the Henry