Letter from the Editor #651

This week week the FDA’s Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee recommended that degludec, Novo’s new long acting insulin, be approved for use in the United States. There was a lot of the usual fuss about CV studies that seems to go along with with every new diabetes drug, but this time the panel agreed on a post-marketing cardiovascular outcomes trial for the product’s two formulations, and that means the drug will get to market a lot sooner. Now that it is on the way the real questions are how much will it cost, and will insurers pony up the extra money for the medication?

If you have an interest in learning more about this new class of insulins then be sure and look for our Homerun Slides in next week’s Diabetes Clinical Mastery Series newsletter.

While you are checking out the slides you may also want to "google" yourself and see what has been posted about you and your practice as one out of every five patients uses online search engine information to choose a primary care physician. Check out this week’s Item #6, Patients Searching Internet for Info on Their Docs, and find out if you need to put more effort into beefing up your online presence.

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Dave Joffe, Editor-in-chief