From Discovery to Innovation: Novel Treatments for Diabetic Cardiovascular Disease

“Why science? It’s a good question,” says Michael E. Widlansky, MD, MPH, Northwestern Mutual Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine and director of the Cardiovascular Research Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW). “When you look at scientific discovery, there’s so much we don’t know. Most of the time when we think we’ve found something, it brings up many more questions than it answers.”

That cycle of inquiry – of discovery sparking further exploration – draws Dr. Widlansky to medicine and keeps him working in the lab. A physician-scientist with a deep focus on cardiovascular health, he is propelled by the idea that new understandings of biology can eventually be transformed into better outcomes for patients.

“It’s the quest for knowledge,” he says. “You try to understand what’s going on around you and then take that information and try to help people. That’s really the major drive.”

Dr. Widlansky has spent his career investigating how diabetes damages blood vessels and, more importantly, what might be done to stop it. His work has uncovered cellular mechanisms that contribute to cardiovascular disease in people with diabetes, paving the way for novel treatments.

Recently, that research took a leap beyond the lab. Dr. Widlansky has taken insights from his research and launched a biotechnology startup – accelerating the path from scientific discovery to real-world treatments. What began as a breakthrough in understanding how blood vessels misfire in disease now drives the development of new technologies and therapies designed to restore vascular health.

From Bench to Breakthrough: The Birth of Sanacor

Through a basic science study into how mitochondria inside our cells function, Dr. Widlansky’s team discovered that a protein called Fis1 is a key contributor to blood vessel damage in people with diabetes.

By developing a therapeutic peptide that blocks Fis1, the team identified a potential way to slow or even reverse this damage. The implications are significant: this could become the first effective treatment for diabetic cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death among people with diabetes.

“We’re seeing promising effects in human tissue, and we’re continuing to refine the compounds,” Dr. Widlansky says.

This discovery evolved into Sanacor, a Milwaukee-based biotechnology startup Dr. Widlansky co-founded to develop Fis1-inhibiting compounds into viable drugs. The company’s mission seeks to address the growing global crisis of diabetic cardiovascular disease, which is projected to affect more than 783 million people by 2045 and cost more than $1 trillion annually in care.

“I didn’t start out trying to build a company, but we found something that looked promising, and it developed organically,” Dr. Widlansky says.

The path from academic research to startup formation has been a learning experience – one that Dr. Widlansky says has been made possible by the supportive institutional culture and collaborative scientific environment at MCW.

“The institution recognizes how important it is to move great ideas from the bench toward real impact on human health,” he says.

He also credits collaborators with complementary skills, from medicinal chemistry to business strategy, for helping bring the idea to life.

Sanacor’s efforts are already expanding. While the primary focus remains on diabetic cardiovascular disease, the company is beginning to investigate the role of Fis1 in other complications of diabetes, including kidney and eye disease, neurodegeneration, oncology, and rare mitochondrial disorders.

The Crucial Role of Basic Science and Federal Funding

Central to Dr. Widlansky’s journey is the value of basic science research, much of which would not happen without federal support. His lab’s discovery of Fis1’s role in vascular dysfunction was made possible through sustained funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the American Heart Association.

“NIH funding is critical for discovery science,” he says. “It allows us to find new targets and understand new biology – things that industry often isn’t structured to explore.”

In Dr. Widlansky’s view, the biomedical enterprise is a carefully balanced ecosystem: academic research generates discovery; startups refine and translate those discoveries; and industry scales up to bring them to market.

“If you lose that academic portion, the place where the real discovery happens, then you lose the fuel for future drug development,” he says. “Most of the new therapies people are excited about started in a lab like ours.”