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A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there are nearly 26 million people in America with diabetes. Even worse, the organization says there are an estimated 79 million U.S. adults who have prediabetes, making them at risk for other conditions including heart disease and stroke.
Diabetes comes in two forms. Type 1 — often referred to as juvenile diabetes — is usually diagnosed in children and young adults when the body fails to produce insulin, a hormone that is needed to convert sugar and other food into energy. Less than 5 percent of people with diabetes have this form.
The vast majority of people with diabetes have type 2, which results when the body does not produce enough insulin to process sugar, which leads to high glucose levels in the body with potential damage to eyes, kidneys, nerves and heart.
In most cases, type 2 diabetes is the result of poor lifestyle choices.
“These distressing numbers show how important it is to prevent type 2 diabetes and to help those who have diabetes manage the disease to prevent serious complications. We know that a structured lifestyle program that includes losing weight and increasing physical activity can prevent or delay type 2 diabetes,” said Ann Albright, director of the CDC’s division of diabetes transition.
San Diego has become a major center for research into treatments for type 2 diabetes as well as obesity, a condition that often leads to diabetes complications. The demand for drugs to treat this illness is exploding. It is estimated that the market will grow from $20.5 billion worldwide in 2009 to $36 billion in 2019.
“With evidence mounting daily about the incredible toll of the diabetes epidemic, we continue to work with a great sense of urgency to meet the needs of patients and secure approval for Bydureon, which we believe is a potential game changer for the way people with type 2 diabetes manage their disease,” said David Bradbury, CEO of San Diego-based Amylin Pharmaceuticals.
The benefit of Bydureon and other drugs developed by Amylin is to reduce the number of injections of insulin that people with diabetes will have to endure.
At the same time, Amylin and other local companies are working on treatments to reduce obesity. The Food and Drug Administration has been hesitant to give approval to these times of products because of concerns regarding potential long-term complications.
Last week the FDA issued a letter to Orexigen, a San Diego company that is developing a drug for the treatment of obesity, saying, “Before your application can be approved, you must conduct a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of sufficient size and duration to demonstrate that the risk of major adverse cardiovascular events in overweight and obese subjects treated does not adversely affect the drug’s benefit-risk profile.”
Orexigen’s CEO Michael Narachi said he is disappointed with this delay in approving Contrave and, “we plan to work closely with the agency to gain more information to determine the appropriate next steps.”
At the same time, work is progressing with efforts to help the innocent victims of type 1 diabetes. The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation is working with Eli Lilly to come up with a treatment that could help extend the life of young people who suffer from this disease.
“The goal of this research agreement is to understand how selected cells can be reprogrammed in order to convert them into insulin-producing cells in the body. This research is an example of regenerative medicine, a new frontier in science that replaces or regenerates new cells, tissues or organs, and while this particular research is early stage, it may ultimately lead to new approaches to treating type 1 diabetes,” said Dr. Philip Larsen, chief scientific officer at Lilly.
