Once-weekly diabetes treatment looking good

good news for diabetics...

A once-weekly Type II diabetes treatment has shown promise when compared to its twice-daily counterpart.

Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Eli Lilly and Alkermes have developed a long-acting release formulation of exenatide, which is currently marketed as Byetta, a twice-daily injection.

The results from a 30-week comparator study of the two products showed a "statistically significant improvement" in the A1C test, which gives a picture of average blood glucose control over a two to three month period to indicate how well diabetes treatment is working.

According to the companies, the once-weekly formulation showed an improvement in A1C of approximately 1.9 percentage points from baseline, compared to an improvement of approximately 1.5 percentage points for Byetta. Approximately three out of four subjects treated with once-weekly exenatide achieved an A1C of seven per cent or less. A1C of less than seven per cent is the target for good glucose control as recommended by the American Diabetes Association.

During the study, both treatments showed an average weight loss in the subjects of approximately eight pounds.

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