New diabetes drugs being developed

Mon, 28 Jun 2010
A new study into drug treatments that help lower blood glucose levels in a different way than traditional treatments is currently being developed to combat type 2 diabetes .

The drugs are focusing on bringing down levels of blood glucose by raising the amount of glucose excreted in the urine of diabetics. Dapagliflozin, which is being developed by Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca, is expected to be filed for US Food and Drug Administration and European Medicines Agency approval later this year. Presented to the American Diabetes Association, the dapagliflozin study was lead by John Wilding, a professor of medicine and the head of the diabetes and endocrinology clinical research unit at University Hospital, Aintree in the UK.

Dapagliflozin and canagliflozin, a similar drug that is being developed by Johnson and Johnson, are SGLT2 inhibitors that work to inhibit the sodium-glucose transporter-2 system used by the kidneys to filter and reabsorb glucose circulating in the blood.

There were two main areas of research; firstly, an advanced phase 3 study of dapagliflozin that involved patients with type 2 diabetes who were on insulin, which found the drug was beneficial in lowering A1C blood hemoglobin levels compared to those receiving a placebo.

The other part was a phase 2 study of canagliflozin aimed at investigating different doses of the drug, which revealed that the drug helped lower blood glucose levels. In addition, Johnson and Johnson have begun a more in-depth, phase 3 study of canagliflozin involving more than 10,000 patients.

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