NEWS - FDA OKs new drug for type 2 diabetes

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FDA OKs new drug for type 2 diabetes

Last Updated: 2005-04-29 11:36:18 -0400 (Reuters Health)

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A drug derived from lizard saliva has been approved by

U.S. regulators to treat diabetes in patients who have not responded to

other treatments, the drug's developers, Eli Lilly and Co. and Amylin

Pharmaceuticals Inc., said on Friday.

The drug, exenatide, to be sold under the brand name Byetta, was approved by

the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as an add-on therapy for patients with

type 2 diabetes -- the most common form -- whose blood sugar is not

sufficiently controlled by two other treatments. The FDA did not approve the

drug as a stand-alone treatment.

The drug is made from the saliva of the Gila monster lizard, which lives in

the Arizona desert and eats just four times a year. It is the first of a new

class of drugs known as incretin mimetics. It mimics hormones released in

the human gut in response to food that help regulate glucose levels.

About 18 million people in the United States have diabetes, or 6.2 percent

of the population. Diabetics are unable to produce enough insulin or cannot

process their insulin properly, resulting in dangerously high blood-sugar

levels, which can lead to heart disease, blindness and amputations if not

treated.

(Additional reporting by Toni e in New York).

Not an MD

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Mayo Clinic in Rochester

http://www.mayoclinic.org/rochester

s Hopkins Medicine

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org