New Oral Victoza May End Daily Insulin Injections

The drug is about to be tested on 155 British patients as part of a trial that could transform treatment of the disease.

It is an oral form of Victoza, a medicine already FDA approved for use in diabetes, which 'turbo-charges' insulin production in the pancreas, the organ responsible for making the hormone. But in its current form, it has to be injected.

If trials are successful, it could mean many diabetics are freed from the burden of daily injections to make up for the body's inability to make enough insulin.

Type 1 diabetes affects 2.5 million in the U.S. and often starts in childhood. The pill is unlikely to replace daily insulin jabs for these patients, as this form of diabetes often destroys the pancreas beyond repair.  But it could help more than the 24 million in the U.S. who have Type 2 diabetes, a much more common condition that tends to affect people from middle age onwards.

Victoza, launched in Britain last year, and recently in the U.S. belongs to a new class of medicines called glucagonlike peptides.

These drugs, which are injected at the same time every day, send out a signal for the pancreas to increase insulin output when blood sugar levels have risen too high. They also help by triggering weight loss. One major trial last year suggested that they are almost twice as effective as some other anti-obesity drugs.  But the fact that patients still need to inject themselves is seen as a potential barrier to its widespread use.

Now Novo Nordisk, the company that makes the drug, has turned it into a pill and is recruiting 155 patients in Britain to try it out in a trial, which is expected to last a year.

If it works, it could mean simply popping a tablet once a day instead of painful injections. However, there have been concerns that the drug might raise the risk of thyroid cancer.

A pill version of glucagon-like peptides would improve patient choice and could mean a huge improvement in quality of life.