California now a hub for diabetes research

Tue, 27 Jul 2010
A new report has found that pharmaceutical research and biotechnology companies in the US state of California are in the process of researching and developing 58 different new medicines for diabetes . A study by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) revealed that the 58 medications under R&D by California companies amount to a quarter of the treatments for the disease and its closely related conditions that are currently being developed throughout pharmaceutical research and biotechnology companies in the US.

Ed Belkin, Vice President of PhRMA, said "Clearly, there is an urgent need for our companies to focus on diabetes, the nation’s fifth deadliest disease. Since 1987, the diabetes death rate has increased by 45 per cent even as the death rates for heart disease, stroke and cancer have declined."

With eight percent of the US population suffering from the metabolic condition, and a further 220 million patients worldwide, new research leading to new, effective treatments, is essential.

In California itself, diabetes had doubled over the last decade, and the development of new medicines for minorities, including Latino residents, is seen as a priority. It is reported that slightly more than 10 per cent of all Latinos resident in the US have diabetes, and they are nearly two times more likely to have this chronic disease than non-Hispanic whites of the same age. The medicines under development in California are nearly all for type 2 diabetes, by far the most common form of the disease in the state.

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