According to the JDRF, as many as 3 million Americans may have Type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease that strikes children and adults suddenly and can be fatal. In Type 1 diabetes, the patient's own immune system destroys the patient's beta cells in their pancreas that normally control blood sugar level. Patients with Type 1 diabetes have to test their blood sugar and give themselves insulin injections multiple times each day, or use a pump every day for the rest of their lives. And even with intensive care, insulin is not a cure for diabetes, nor does it completely prevent its eventual and devastating complications, which may include kidney failure, blindness, heart disease, stroke, and amputation. 

IL-1 beta has been demonstrated to be involved in the destruction of pancreatic beta cells in patients with Type 1 diabetes as well as Type 2 disease.  In Type 1 diabetes, immune cells that target a patient's pancreatic beta cells initiate the damage, which results in an increase in blood glucose levels. The higher blood glucose levels stimulate the production of the pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-1 beta which, in turn, feeds back on the pancreatic beta cells, reducing their insulin-production efficiency and eventually leading to cell death. XOMA 052 is an antibody that binds to IL-1 beta and interferes with the activation of the IL-1 receptor, thereby reducing cellular signaling events that produce pathological levels of inflammation.