A 36-year-old mother of two has become the first adult in the UK to receive a new treatment that could delay the need for insulin in people with type 1 diabetes.
Hannah Robinson, a dentist, was diagnosed with early-stage type 1 diabetes during her pregnancy. She is now being treated with teplizumab at Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, as part of a programme exploring its use in people at high risk of developing type 1 diabetes.
Type 1 diabetes is caused by the immune system mistakenly attacking the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.
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Over time, this leads to the need for lifelong insulin injections to manage blood sugar levels. But teplizumab works by targeting the immune response early – helping to protect those insulin-producing cells and delay disease progression.
Already approved in the United States, teplizumab has been shown to delay the need for insulin by an average of three years. The treatment needs to be given at the very earliest stage of the condition – often before symptoms have fully developed – to be most effective.
Speaking about the treatment, Hannah said: “For me, this drug offers more time – time to focus on my health before starting insulin.”
“It gives me a sense of control and hope, and it means I’m not defined by my condition just yet. It could even be a step towards a cure in the future.”
Dr Nick Thomas, a diabetes consultant and academic clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter, said: “This is a really exciting step forward. For the first time, we have a treatment that can intervene early enough to slow down how quickly someone with type 1 needs insulin. Around half of all new cases of type 1 diabetes happen in adulthood – and Hannah is the first adult in the UK to receive this drug.”
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The team at Royal Devon and the University of Exeter is also working on ways to identify people at high risk of developing type 1 diabetes – using genetic tests and blood markers – so that they can be offered treatment as early as possible.
Dr Lucy Chambers, Head of Research Impact at Diabetes UK, welcomed the news: “Teplizumab offers real hope to people in the early stages of type 1. But there’s still work to do to make it widely available. That means licensing the drug in the UK, setting up national screening programmes, and ensuring the NHS is ready to deliver this treatment where needed.”
Diabetes UK is helping to lead efforts to bring immunotherapy treatments like teplizumab into routine care – with the goal of stopping or slowing the progression of type 1 diabetes before insulin is needed.
