The persistent need for insulin sensitizers and other disease-modifying anti-diabetic drugs

Abstract

Despite significant advances in diabetes care since the introductions of insulin and metformin, disease burden continues to grow. Large gaps in standard of care remain, and no robustly disease-modifying pharmacotherapy exists. Substantial research has been directed towards beta cell preservation and regeneration with no translational success, while little drug discovery or development is aimed at the other major cause of diabetes, namely, insulin resistance. Given the absence of convincing evidence that human beta cells can be regenerated, the diabetes community must broaden its focus to include new therapeutic strategies to limit, and reverse, insulin resistance.

Keywords::

• beta cells
• glucose
• insulin
• resistance
• thiazolidinediones

Financial & competing interests disclosure

The author is an employee of Takeda Pharmaceuticals. The author has no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.