Sept. 8, 2026—Breakthrough T1D, the leading global type 1 diabetes (T1D) research and advocacy organization, has awarded a grant to the Health and Environmental Sciences Institute (HESI Global) to establish and launch the T1D Cures Accelerator (T1DCA), a first-of-its-kind global collaboration designed to accelerate the discovery of biomarkers that can help bring new therapies and cures for T1D to people faster.
The grant will support the launch of a multi-sector consortium that brings together researchers, clinical trial networks, industry partners, foundations, and people with firsthand experience of T1D to unlock new insights from decades of existing T1D research.
Closing a Critical Gap in T1D Drug Development
Globally, 9.5 million people live with T1D, and that number continues to grow. While researchers have made tremendous progress in understanding and treating the disease, developing new therapies remains a lengthy and expensive process. One of the biggest challenges is that clinical trials often take years to determine if a therapy is effective, relying on changes in clinical outcomes over time and slowing the development of promising new treatments.
Biomarkers, measurable biological signals that reveal what is happening inside the body, have the potential to change that. By providing earlier indications of disease progression or treatment response, biomarkers can help researchers make faster, better-informed decisions, conduct more efficient clinical trials, and evaluate more potential therapies.
Unlocking the Full Value of Decades of Research
For decades, the global T1D community has invested billions of dollars in research, generating an extraordinary collection of clinical data and biological samples. Yet most of these studies have been conducted independently, leaving valuable information dispersed across many individual trials. The T1D Cures Accelerator was created to bring these resources together for the first time.
This new consortium will integrate data and biological specimens from T1D clinical trials conducted around the world and apply advanced analytical technologies to study them collectively. By examining these datasets side by side, researchers hope to identify biological patterns and biomarkers that individual studies were never designed to detect on their own.
The result will be a powerful new resource for the entire T1D community that can support faster paths toward therapies and cures.
A Precompetitive, Multi-Sector Model
The T1D Cures Accelerator is designed as a precompetitive consortium that will allow organizations to collaborate on foundational scientific questions that benefit the entire field. With access to data, samples, expertise, and resources far beyond the current capacity of any single organization, academic researchers, industry partners, foundations, clinical trial networks, and patient representatives will be able to work together in new ways and accelerate T1D science and therapy development.
HESI Global, an independent nonprofit with more than 35 years of experience in designing and leading complex scientific collaborations across academia, industry, and government, will provide the neutral governance and expertise needed to coordinate the consortium.
This grant provides the initial funding needed to launch the Accelerator. HESI Global and Breakthrough T1D plan to build on this investment by inviting additional partners to join the effort over time.
“Driving type 1 diabetes research and innovation forward on the path to cures is Breakthrough T1D’s key priority,” said Josh Vieth, Ph.D., Breakthrough T1D Senior Director of Research. “We are excited to help launch the T1D Cures Accelerator, which will foster the collaboration and information-sharing across the type 1 diabetes research ecosystem necessary to advance breakthroughs and get them in the hands of those who need them, faster.”
“HESI Global is both proud and motivated to bring our decades of experience in multi-sector science collaboration to the T1D Cures Accelerator alongside Breakthrough T1D. Together with all of our partners, we are honored to better support patients by advancing the science behind type 1 diabetes treatment,” said Syril Pettit, Executive Director of HESI Global.
About the Health and Environmental Sciences Institute (HESI Global)
The Health and Environmental Sciences Institute (HESI Global) is an independent, nonprofit scientific organization that brings together experts from academia, government, industry, nongovernmental organizations, and other strategic partners to address global human and environmental health challenges. Through collaborative research, data sharing, scientific convening, and the development of practical tools and frameworks, HESI Global advances science-based solutions for a safer, more sustainable world. Learn more at hesiglobal.org.
About Breakthrough T1D, Formerly JDRF
As the leading global type 1 diabetes research and advocacy organization, Breakthrough T1D helps make everyday life with type 1 diabetes better while driving toward cures. They do this by investing in the most promising research, advocating for progress by working with government to address issues that impact the T1D community, and helping educate and empower individuals facing this condition.
