BMS's Diabetes Drug Dapagliflozin Shows Promise - Lancet

24th Jun 2010 00:01

LONDON (Dow Jones)--Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s (BMY) new drug for treating Type-2 diabetes, dapagliflozin, could be considered as a new therapeutic option for patients who have inadequate blood sugar control with first-line drug metformin, and also for early-stage and late-stage diabetes, researchers said Friday. Writing in the U.K. medical journal, The Lancet, Professor Clifford Bailey of Aston University, Birmingham, England, and colleagues said dapagliflozin is a selective sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitor. The new drug acts independently of insulin, improves blood sugar control, and lowers bodyweight, researchers said. The drug works by preventing reabsorption of glucose in the kidneys, and promoting excretion of glucose in the urine. Thus the drug reduces high levels of blood glucose (hyperglycaemia) without affecting insulin-dependent systems. Since many complications of diabetes are related to high concentrations of blood glucose, directly lowering blood glucose is a legitimate target for new drugs for diabetes. In their study the authors assessed the efficacy and safety of dapagliflozin in patients not managing to control their blood sugar with the first-line treatment of metformin. The authors concluded: "This trial shows that dapagliflozin can improve blood glucose control in patients who have inadequate control with metformin. The drug acts independently of insulin, lowers weight, and is not associated with risk of hypoglycaemia. Safety and tolerability of the drug were also confirmed. Therefore, addition of dapagliflozin to metformin provides a new therapeutic option for treatment of Type-2 diabetes." -By Sten Stovall, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 207 842 9292; [email protected] (END) Dow Jones Newswires June 24, 2010 19:01 ET (23:01 GMT)