April 8, 2026

Dr Partha Kar, NHS England’s national speciality adviser for diabetes, said the approach is ‘really exciting’ and has the potential to be a ‘functional cure’ – adding that it could ‘help a lot of people if it works’.

Adults with type 1 diabetes – an incurable condition affecting around 464,000 people in the UK – currently rely on daily insulin injections or pumps to stay alive. The disease occurs when the body’s immune system destroys insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, leaving patients unable to regulate blood sugar.

A single jab is being billed as a potential cure for type 1 diabetes in a world-first trial set for this year, raising hopes of a dramatic break from the daily insulin injections that keep hundreds of thousands alive in the UK. The gene therapy, KRIYA-839, aims to turn thigh muscle into a long-term insulin factory, with effects that could last for years or even decades — a gamble experts say could become a “functional cure” if it works.

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