The Food and Drug Administration recently approved Toujeo®, a new long-acting insulin developed by Sanofi.  Sanofi hopes that Toujeo will replace Lantus, their current long-acting insulin, which is due to lose its patent protection in the United States in a little over two years—allowing other pharmaceutical companies to develop a generic form of Lantus. 

Toujeo still uses the active ingredient glargine, which is used in Lantus—but at three times the concentration, and it’s designed to release insulin more gradually.  Toujeo provides similar blood glucose control as Lantus but with fewer episodes of hypoglycemia.  Toujeo will be available in a Solostar pen that will contain 450 units of Toujeo, but will require one-third less injection volume as compared to Lantus.  This insulin will be especially helpful for individuals who have insulin resistance and require a large volume of insulin to lower their blood glucose levels. 

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the insulin injected was able to decide when it was needed?  What if it were essentially able to turn itself on and off?  Well, researchers are looking at just that ability. A team of researchers at the University of Utah and Massachusetts Institute of Technology are working on a new form of insulin that is glucose responsive.  This would allow insulin to be self-regulating.  Researchers are trying a new approach using a chemical group known as PBA.  PBA would bind to the glucose and activate the insulin whenever it is needed.  In mouse models Ins-PBA-F works as quickly as insulin does in a healthy mouse.  Researchers hope to reach clinical trials in two to five years.  

Researchers at MIT and Massachusetts General Hospital have devised a new drug delivery system that contains micro-needles.  The device could deliver insulin, antibodies and other therapies.  The capsule is coated with tiny needles and delivers the medication painlessly in the gastrointestinal tract, as there are no pain sensors in the intestines.  Presently, this technology has been used successfully in administering insulin in pigs.  Researchers are looking into making biodegradable needles and adding sugar that would break off, embed in the gastrointestinal tract, and continue to deliver the medication as the sugar molecule disintegrates. Further research is required to modify the capsule so that the movement of the gastrointestinal tract would squeeze the medication out of the capsule. 

A study published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology presented data from a Danish clinical registry of individuals with diabetes.  Researchers looked at two groups – the first consisted of 15,679 people who had been prescribed a statin before being diagnosed with diabetes; the second was made up of 47,037 people whom had never taken a statin medication before being diagnosed with diabetes.  Recent research has shown that taking a statin drug may raise blood glucose levels in some individuals and may result in the development of Type 2 diabetes.  The Danish researchers were trying to determine if statins caused harm, and their findings were somewhat of a surprise.
 
The individuals who had taken statins before their diagnosis of diabetes were actually 34% less likely to develop diabetic neuropathy or nerve damage, 40% less likely to develop diabetes eye disease, and the risk of gangrene was about 12% less than in the group not taking statins.  Kidney disease appeared to exist in equal numbers in both groups.  In addition, we know that lowering blood cholesterol levels also reduces the risk of heart disease and stroke.

High blood glucose levels cause damage to small blood vessels, and from this observational study it appears as if statins may in fact reduce the inflammation that high blood glucose levels cause in blood vessels and may reduce the risk of the complications associated with diabetes.