Non-invasive insulin delivery ‘will revolutionise diabetes care’

The adoption of new technologies will “revolutionise” diabetes care, according to a global consulting company.

Frost & Sullivan has said that the increase in the number of drug delivery methods will help patients who fail to keep to their treatment regimen because of the fear of injections and the pain associated with them.

Some of the research areas in development include oral, nanotechnology based, transdermal and gene therapy delivery systems.

Recently the introduction of Pfizer’s inhaled insulin (Exubera) in the UK was hailed by Diabetes UK as a “major breakthrough”, but Frost & Sullivan said that there are concerns over the long-term safety of inhaled insulins, due to reports of pulmonary fibrosis in clinical trials.

Sylvia Miriyam Findlay, research analyst for Frost & Sullivan, remarked: “As the European markets are driven by the convenience factor, companies will need to analyse dosing accuracy, bioavailability and the device size.”

“This novel drug delivery method will have to demonstrate its advantages in terms of safety and accuracy relative to current insulin injections,” she added.

Ms Findlay concluded: “Through more convenient drug delivery methods, pharmaceutical companies, regulatory bodies and other government institutions can introduce better diabetes care and reduce costs related to diabetic complications caused by poor compliance.”

Recently, Diabetes UK hailed a breakthrough that allows some children and adults with a rare type of diabetes to take sulphonylurea tablets instead of insulin injections.

The tablets only work in patients with a specific gene. Doctors say there may be a number of patients with the gene who are unaware of this, who still take injected insulin.

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