The 21st century has seen the arrival of several insulin analogue products and the refinement of insulin regimens, with widespread advocacy of continuous titration algorithms and earlier initiation of supplementary insulin therapy (predominantly using basal insulins) in type 2 diabetes. Nevertheless, many insulin-treated diabetes patients remain in poor glycaemic control. This might reflect insufficient titration effort or lax adherence, but these issues could in some cases result from concerns about hypoglycaemia. Certainly there is scope for improving the pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) profile of basal insulin, and three new products offer this prospect. Insulin degludec, now in clinical use, and PEGylated insulin lispro, in development, have greatly extended action profiles that result from two very different, but unique, mechanisms. With once-daily dosing, these insulins produce stable PK/PD profiles at steady state, associated with a low incidence of hypoglycaemia. The feasibility of varied daily dose timing has also been confirmed with insulin degludec. High strength formulations of insulin glargine and insulin degludec offer the prospect of a reduced injection number/volume in high dose users, and in the case of glargine, the PK/PD profile might also be favourably modified. This review considers critically the clinical evidence and expectations we should have for these new basal insulins. Keywords: basal insulin, diabetes, insulin degludec, pegylated insulin lispro, U300 glargine
Date submitted 9 September 2013; date of first decision 29 September 2013; date of final acceptance 29 September 2013
Why do we Need Better Basal Insulins?Basal insulins are used in patients with type 1 diabetes in basalbolus therapy and are now widely used in patients with type 2 diabetes either as basal-bolus or basal plus oral anti-diabetic drug (OAD) regimens. Unfortunately, despite the availability of insulin analogues and improved education for patients and their healthcare providers, the likelihood of achieving good glycaemic control according to recent guidelines remains discouragingly low [1,2]. Globally, poor glycaemic control is highly prevalent with 44-63% of patients not achieving glycaemic targets in Latin America, Europe, Asia and the United States [3][4][5][6]. Since such poor control ultimately results in the early appearance of vascular complications, the cost of diabetes care is escalating rapidly worldwide.Many factors including regimen complexity, injection frequency and weight gain can impede a patient's ability to manage and control their blood glucose levels, and hypoglycaemia (or fear of it) is widely perceived as a principal limiting factor in the success of insulin therapy. Acutely, mild hypoglycaemia causes unpleasant and distressing adrenergic symptoms for patients who, as a consequence, practice avoidance behaviours. On occasion severe hypoglycaemia occurs, which can result in fatal or non-fatal cardiovascular Correspondence to: Alan J Garber, MD PhD, Professor of Medicine, Biochemistry and ...