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Greater life expectancy and changes in lifestyle are combining to create an epidemic of diabetes throughout the world. The prevalence of diabetes ranges from 5 percent of the population in North America and Europe to 10-25 percent in Asia, with more than 300 million people worldwide expected to be diagnosed with the disease by 2025. Treating diabetes and its complications, which severely compromise quality of life (blindness, pain and renal dialysis), consumes 15 percent of healthcare budgets in the U.S.
Standard of care for diabetes aims to control blood glucose concentration sufficiently that levels of hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), a form of the oxygen-carrying protein that has sugar residues bound to it, is less than 6.5 percent of total hemoglobin. Treatment relies heavily on medicines discovered more than 40 years ago; insulin, metformin and sulfonyl-ureas like glipazide. These are used in combination with more recently discovered medicines like Actos (pioglitazone), Januvia (sitagliptin) and the injectable incretin hormone, Byetta. Despite extensive use of these medicines in combinations (2 or 3 at a time), more than half of diabetics do not achieve the recommended level of HbA1c. Moreover, many of these medicines have significant side effects, including weight gain, gastrointestinal disturbances and excessive lowering of blood glucose, hypoglycemia.
Pfizer is responding to the need for better treatments by making diabetes a major focus of our R&D. This is a significant challenge, as we have not been a player in treating diabetes. We have recently set up a "Research Unit" devoted to discovering better medicines for diabetes. The objectives of our research are to increase the sensitivity of organs in the body, like muscle, to insulin; and to improve the health of the pancreatic beta-cells that make insulin. A central part of our strategy uses the rapidly growing understanding of how diabetes as a disease develops, based on studying human genetics. We are also using recent advances in stem cell biology to potentially "regenerate" the human pancreas, in partnership with the Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center (BBC). To position ourselves at the leading edge of this wave of science, we are collaborating with globally renowned biomedical researcher groups, and we are being guided by an external scientific advisory panel of pre-eminent physician scientists, chaired by world renowned diabetes researcher Jerry Olefsky. With this foundation, I am confident we will emerge as a leader in providing new medicines to treat diabetes.
Tim Rolph
Chief Scientific Officer
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