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Diabetes cure sold for $30 million?

I read that a scientist or inventor discovered a cure for diabetest and he was offered $30 million for. Did he sell it? Is the cure still around?


Posted Answers

By AcaiLover - Posted on December 2nd, 2008
A:

U of C sued over diabetes 'cure'
Businessman alleges breach of contract

Deborah Tetley, Calgary Herald
Published: Sunday, March 19, 2006
A B.C. businessman has launched legal action against the University of Calgary, an affiliated technology company and one of its former diabetes researchers, citing alleged defamation and breach of contract.

Youngsoo Kim's statement of claim, filed in British Columbia Supreme Court, stems from statements made in a controversial bestselling book suggesting the university has been hiding a diabetes cure from the public for the past 20 years.

Kim, a principal owner of Eastwood Biomedical Research in Richmond, B.C., sells an herbal remedy to diabetics called Eleotin and is seeking unspecified damages for defamation and breach of contract, costs and an injunction against the defendants.

He says he purchased a compound in 1996 through University Technologies International after it was developed at the U of C by Ji-Won Yoon.

At the time, Yoon was director of the university's Julia MacFarlane Research Centre for Diabetes.

One of the elements at the centre of the controversy is Kim's claims that human clinical trials were conducted.

U of C officials and Yoon have rejected Kim's claims, as well as those in Kevin Trudeau's book, Natural Cures They Don't Want You to Know About, which says there are cures for hundreds of ailments government and drug companies are hiding.

Trudeau's book has sold more than five million copies.

The U of C's medical department received more than 100 queries once the book was released last fall from people looking for more information about a "cure" for non-insulin dependent diabetes.

An official with the U of C declined comment on the legal action because the matter is before the courts, but reiterated the university's earlier position:

"Our primary concern is that the public is given accurate, scientifically proven information about real treatments for diabetes," said spokesman Roman Cooney. "We want to ensure that no one creates false hope in conjunction with the University of Calgary name."

Yoon, who now works at the Rosalind Medical Center in Illinois and is no longer with the

U of C, was unavailable for comment.

He has already rejected Kim's claims.

"I told him (Kim) 100 times it wasn't a cure," Yoon said last month. "He knew we hadn't tested it on patients."

University lawyers have not filed a statement of defence, but last month Pere Santamaria, director of the Diabetes Research Centre, said the patent Kim obtained was based upon research on animals, not in humans.

Santamaria said Kim, a former University of Alberta professor, licensed two herbal compounds discovered at the U of C in the late 1990s, but the compounds are not listed as ingredients on Eleotin.

David Taylor, Kim's lawyer in Vancouver, also declined comment on the statement of claim.

In the court documents, dated March 9, Kim maintains his claim that after the compound was purchased, trials were conducted on at least 10 humans by Yoon.

He also argues that the U of C's public comments distancing the school from Kim and the compounds are misleading, false and defamatory.

"(Eastwood and Kim) have requested (the U of C) to retract the statements or alternatively to publish clarifications . . . to avoid defamatory innuendo but (the U of C) has refused/neglected to undertake such contact," the documents read.

"The statements are defamatory . . . and have caused injury, loss and damage, including injury to reputation and financial loss."

In 2004, Trudeau was banned from making infomercials in the United States for falsely claiming cures.

dtetley@theherald.canwest.com



By AcaiLover - Posted on December 2nd, 2008
A:

Supposedly, there was.

Firm claims diabetes cure
Allegations fly as company accuses U of C of coverup

Nisha Patel
Gauntlet News

February 16, 2006
Print this story
A legal scuffle may be in the future for the University of Calgary after officials denied allegations the school covered up a cure for diabetes.

The controversy arose when well-known infomercial spokesman Kevin Trudeau published his best-selling book, Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You To Know About. Trudeau cites herbal remedies for over 50 specific diseases, which he says are being suppressed by pharmaceutical companies and government agencies. On page 349, Trudeau says, "The natural cure for diabetes is a combination of herbs researched at the U of C for over 20 years."

A statement released by the Julia McFarlane Diabetes Research Centre at the U of C called the information in Trudeau's book inaccurate and misleading, and said that there have been no clinical trials conducted at the U of C in the past 20 years on herbal remedies for diabetes. Clinical trials are used to understand the side effects a remedy may have on humans.

Director of the JMDRC Dr. Pere Santamaria elaborated on the statement.

"We have conducted some research on herbal compounds, but no clinical trials were done," he said. "You cannot approve using the extract until the proper procedure has been completed."

That research was licensed to Eastwood Bio-Medical Research Inc., headed by chief executive Dr. Youngsoo Kim. The company has patented the research for the natural remedy Eleotin. Their website claims Eleotin was first developed at the JMDRC at the U of C and is effective in improving the blood glucose levels in diabetes patients.

"When we got the technology license from the U of C, their documents said that it would cure diabetes," said Kim, referring to the herbal compounds used in the first version of Eleotin developed by his company. "On the basis of their claim we made these investments."

Kim was Trudeau's source for the information published in his book.

"The products were interpreted by a very popular infomercial star and all of a sudden [U of C officials] begin to say there is no cure," Kim said.

Santamaria said Eleotin has no relationship to the previous research done at the U of C.

"The compounds [that were licensed] are not part of what the company sells," he said.

Kim is pursuing legal action against the university.

"Every right-minded person will say that EBMR was claiming the cure and that EBMR was lying," said Kim. "But it was the U of C, we are suing the U of C. I am not going to stay silent."

Lawyers for the U of C would not comment on legal issues with Kim. However, the school's legal counsel has asked Trudeau to cease and desist from further associating the U of C with the claims in his book.

In the book, Trudeau says he is forbidden by the United States Federal Trade Commission to name the cure by brand name. The FTC also banned Trudeau from appearing in or producing future infomercials as a result of publicly making false and unsubstantiated claims. Trudeau maintains in his book that the herbal remedy works, and says, "[the cure] is called by the Asian Diabetic Association the final cure for diabetes."

Santamaria stressed it isn't possible to cure diabetes with any herbal extract.

"This claim is groundless," he said. "It has no scientific foundation."