March 27, 2021

There is no doubt that the side effect endpoints a pharma company has to evaluate when they bring a new drug to market have increased over the past 15 years. We often mention that if some of the older diabetes medications had to go through the rigorous studies required today, most of them would have never made it onto the pharmacy shelves.

Although these studies are looking for side effects they oftentimes reveal positive effects for our patients. Last week we had a feature on how GLP-1RAs show positive results for use in type 1 patients. Another of these classes of drugs that has borne extra fruit is the SGLT-2 inhibitors. They were first approved for glucose control, but when further data was analyzed we found they helped with hypertension, kidney failure, and weight loss. This week our intern, Adrian Gavre, PharmD Candidate, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, discusses the relationship of SGLT-2 inhibitors and anemia in renally challenged patients with diabetes. Take a look here at our Laterpay feature to learn what else these “diabetes” drugs can do.

 

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We can make a difference!

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Dave Joffe

Editor-in-chief