Drug manufacturer, Novo Nordisk, has announced that diabetic patients in Canada would soon be able to get insulin once a week instead of daily.
Ahead of the announcement, Novo Nordisk said Insulin icodec, which is expected to be sold under the brand name Awiqli, is the first weekly basal insulin injection in the world and it will be made available across the country starting June 30.
Canada is the first nation to get the product, which Health Canada approved in March for the treatment of adults with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.
While reacting to the development, Dr. Harpreet Bajaj, head of the clinical practice guidelines steering committee at Diabetes Canada, said: “I think it’s a very big deal.”
In the same vein, Bajaj, an endocrinologist at LMC,said: “It’s huge for reducing the burden on these people who need to inject insulin.”
He said some of his patientstook part in clinical trials for Awiqli and have been wanting to know when it would become available as they’ve returned to daily injections since the research ended.
Bajaj said though the weekly insulin has been approved by Health Canadal for treatment of both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, endocrinologists reveal it will be mostly useful for Type 2 patients because patients with Type 1 diabetes would still give themselves additional fast-acting insulin injections during mealtimes every day because their bodies don’t produce any insulin on their own.
Meanwhile, people with Type 2 diabetes do make insulin, either not enough or their bodies don’t use it properly.
He added that Basal insulin shots bring their levels of the hormone to the required amount during fasting, while other medications can control the “spikes of sugars that come with food,” Bajaj said.