Sparrow Pharmaceuticals Announces Interim CAPTAIN-T2D Data Validating High Prevalence of Elevated Cortisol in Difficult-to-Control Type 2 Diabetes

More than 75% of patients screened show elevated cortisol level associated with increased prevalence of cardiovascular disease

Inadequate glycemic control despite incretin mimetic use and concomitant hypertension were associated with higher levels of cortisol

Boston, Massachusetts, June 15, 2026 — Sparrow Pharmaceuticals, a targeted cardiometabolic therapeutics company, today announced interim data from Part 1 of the Phase 2b CAPTAIN-T2D evaluating the prevalence of elevated cortisol (EC) in difficult-to-control Type 2 diabetes (T2D). The data were presented in a late-breaking poster presentation at the Endocrine Society’s Annual Meeting (ENDO 2026), from June 13–16, 2026, in Chicago, Illinois.

Among 397 participants screened as of the cutoff date, 25.4% exhibited morning serum cortisol >1.8 µg/dL following a 1 mg overnight dexamethasone suppression test (DST), closely aligned with previously published research. 54.2% had an EC level of ≥1.2 µg/dL, also comparable to a previous study in which this level was found to be associated with higher cardiometabolic risk. The company also presented the proportion with an EC level of ≥0.9 µg/dL as 77.1%, as this is a level that has been reported to be associated with an increased prevalence of cardiovascular disease. An additional important finding, also consistent with previous results, was that patients with inadequately controlled T2D who also had hypertension or were using an incretin agonist were more likely to have higher levels of cortisol.

“These data show that elevated cortisol is highly prevalent in patients with difficult-to-control Type 2 diabetes, and that certain easily identifiable clinical characteristics appear to further predict for higher cortisol production,” said Elena A. Christofides, M.D., FACE, Founder of Endocrinology Associates in Columbus, Ohio, and medical advisor to Sparrow Pharmaceuticals. “CAPTAIN-T2D is helping us better understand how cortisol may contribute to treatment resistance and whether targeting cortisol may help us to improve outcomes for patients who remain uncontrolled despite existing therapies.”

Cortisol plays an important role in regulating carbohydrates, lipids, and blood pressure – key components of cardiometabolic health. However, when in excess, cortisol can contribute to insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, hypertension, adiposity, and other morbidities, and may make disease harder to manage with current antidiabetic therapies.

“Together with the Phase 2a data also being presented at this conference showing clofutriben’s impact on glycemic control and other cardiometabolic factors in patients with T2D, with numerically larger improvements in patients with known clinical risk factors for EC, these findings strengthen our view that clofutriben could address a major unmet medical need in cardiometabolic disease,” said Robert Jacks, President & Chief Executive Officer of Sparrow Pharmaceuticals.