Promise for people with Type 2 Diabetes
Amylin Pharmaceuticals and Eli Lilly have released results from a Phase III open-label study of exenatide, the first in a new class of therapies for the treatment of type 2 diabetes known as Incretin Mimetics. These showed that 44% of the participants who completed 24 weeks of treatment achieved glucose level averages within the American Diabetes Association's (ADA) target range.The data are also consistent with a preliminary analysis of the first of three pivotal Phase III studies, which showed a statistically significant reduction in glucose levels and body weight among exenatide users, when compared with placebo.
'These results are important, because many patients with type 2 diabetes do not meet treatment targets. Those that do have difficulty maintaining those targets, and the fact that many of the patients who failed to meet targets on other medications were successful in reaching target on exenatide is very encouraging,' said Dr Michael Nauck, head of the diabetes centre, Bad Lauterberg, Germany. 'The closer patients stay to the target range, the more likely they are to avoid the devastating complications that often result from diabetes.'
Diabetes - the need for new treatments
An estimated 194m people around the world have diabetes, up from 135m in 1995. It is projected that 333m people will have diabetes by the year 2025. In developing countries, the disease rate is expected to grow 170%, from 84m to 228m in 2025. Approximately 90-95% of those affected have type 2 diabetes, in which either the body does not produce enough insulin or the cells in the body do not respond normally to the insulin. According to the US Center for Disease Control's National Health and Examination Survey, 57% of diabetes patients do not achieve target A1C levels with their current treatment regimen and approximately 41% have A1Cs above 8%. According to the ADA, patients with A1Cs above target are more likely to develop diabetes-related complications, such as kidney disease, blindness and heart disease.