Eli Lilly (LLY.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Daiichi Sankyo’s (4568.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) new blood-thinning drug prasugrel appears better for diabetes patients than Plavix, researchers said on Sunday.

Prasugrel — a rival to Plavix from Sanofi-Aventis (SASY.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) — is a key product for Lilly and Daiichi. But its path to market has been delayed and the drug has been associated with serious bleeding.

That has left doctors debating how it might best be used, assuming it is approved by regulators.

Stephen Wiviott of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston said a new analysis of results from the previously reported TRITON-TIMI 38 clinical trial showed the benefit of prasugrel tended to be greater in patients with diabetes than those without the condition.

There was a 13.2 percent reduction in the risk of patients with diabetes having a subsequent heart attack when given prasugrel, compared with an 8.2 percent reduction when they took Plavix, he told the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology.

In non-diabetics, the difference was less marked, at 8.7 percent versus 7.2 percent.

The findings suggest that a more powerful drug may be more effective in the growing group of diabetic patients who are at high risk of suffering a second heart attack.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is due to give its verdict on prasugrel by Sept. 26.

Industry analysts believe the agency’s decision to delay a decision on whether to approve the product could be due in part to uncertainty over how to define precisely which patients should use it.

Plavix is one of the world’s best-selling drugs of all time, with worldwide sales in 2007 of more than $8 billion and prasugrel is also seen as a potential blockbuster, as long as concerns about bleeding do not derail the medicine.

Both treatments work by stopping blood cells called platelets from clumping together. (Reporting by Ben Hirschler, Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

This may be the most important medical research story of the year.

A team headed by Doug Melton (left), who works for both the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Howard Hughes Medical Institute has succeeded in transforming the function of cells, simply by injecting them with new genes.

One scientist said “it turns the entire field on its head.”

Melton  writes on his personal page that he first got involved in stem cell research after his son was diagnosed with Type I diabetes in 1993.

“When my son Sam was diagnosed, I did what any parent would do: I asked myself, ‘What can I do?’”

You done good, Doc.

The gene therapy was performed on mice, whose usefulness as test animals is based on their similarity to human beings. Pancreas cells were induced to produce insulin after being injected with viruses containing insulin-producing genes.

While in theory the technique bypasses the whole embryonic stem cell debate, it opens up a whole new can of worms. Injecting people with viruses is against current FDA guidelines.

The diabetes community is most over-the-moon about this, but it’s a general technique that could also be applied to other conditions, like heart disease and ALS.

Transforming cells through the injection of genes is a very big deal. While it will take some time to prove, and even more time to reach the market, it’s a true medical revolution.

That sort of thing doesn’t happen every day.

Scientists at Harvard University have coaxed pancreas cells in mice to produce insulin without taking the cells out of mice, giving pro-lifers hope that diabetes may one day be cured without embryo-destroying research.

Insulin-producing cells are destroyed in diabetes. The idea of “reprogramming” cells to produce insulin –without destroying embryos – gives those suffering from diabetes hope for an ethical treatment.

Wesley J. Smith, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, said while treatment may be years away, this is another example of how life-destroying embryonic stem-cell research is unnecessary.

“The newest and most hopeful areas of advancement are coming from morally uncontentious areas of biotechnology,” he wrote on his blog. “The drive to push human cloning has been staggered.”

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