Fast-fix insulin is being trialled on type 1 diabetics as 400,000 patients offered an artificial pancreas on the NHS, eliminating the need for daily shots
- Without timely doses of insulin, diabetics can get dangerously high blood sugar
- This can increase your risk of stroke, heart disease and even blindness
Type 1 diabetics who use an artificial pancreas may soon be given breakthrough drugs that make insulin injections permanently obsolete.
The drug is a “super-fast” form of insulin, the hormone diabetics regularly use to control their blood sugar — a job normally done by the pancreas.
Without timely doses of insulin, diabetics can experience dangerously high blood sugar levels, which can increase the risk of stroke, heart disease, vision problems and kidney failure.
It was announced in January that around a quarter of the UK’s 400,000 type 1 diabetics – those who have the genetic form of the disease – will be offered an artificial pancreas on the NHS. This device continuously monitors glucose levels through sensors under a patient’s skin and automatically delivers insulin to the bloodstream using a pump attached to the stomach.
However, patients using an artificial pancreas still need to manually adjust their insulin levels by injecting themselves or by setting the pump to deliver a certain dose after meals. This is because it struggles to cope after eating – when blood sugar levels rise due to the influx of food into the body.
Type 1 diabetics using an artificial pancreas may soon receive groundbreaking drugs that make insulin injections permanently obsolete
In January it was announced that around a quarter of the UK’s 400,000 type 1 diabetics – those who have the genetic form of the disease – would be offered an artificial pancreas on the NHS
The insulin currently used in the artificial pancreas does not work fast enough to reduce this sugar spike when released automatically by the pump.
However, Cambridge-based company Arecor Therapeutics has developed a type of insulin that is up to three times faster than marketed types of insulin to bring down dangerously high blood sugar levels.
A trial is now underway where the new rapid-acting insulin, currently known as AT247, is being given to type 1 diabetics for six weeks to see how it affects their sugar levels.
Sarah Howell, CEO of Arecor Therapeutics, says she hopes the product can be used in the NHS’s artificial pancreas within the next three years. She adds: “Current insulins just don’t work fast enough to counteract the rapid rise in blood glucose during eating. But if we had a faster-acting insulin, that would make a real artificial pancreas possible.
“If we could take the burden off people who have to manually adjust their insulin pump or inject themselves after a meal, we could improve their quality of life – and more importantly, their long-term health.”