Written by: Ben Duncan
SUMMARY
At this year’s American Diabetes Association (ADA) conference we will be paying particularly close attention to Roche’s once-weekly injectable GLP-1 analogue, taspoglutide, AstraZeneca & Bristol-Myers Squibb’s SGLT-2 inhibitor dapagliflozin, and Novo Nordisk’s next generation insulin analogue, Degludec, in order to determine their positioning in the market.
ANALYSIS
Taspoglutide: Data from five pivotal Phase III trials for taspoglutide will be presented (T-Emerge 1, 2, 4, 5 and 7), which assessed the drug in a variety of different treatment contexts. With efficacy data comparable to other long-acting GLP-1 analogues, safety is a key focus; strong nausea data in particular will confer significant upside to our forecasts.
Dapagliflozin: Data from a late-breaking year-long Phase III trial for dapagliflozin in patients uncontrolled on insulin therapy will be presented. We will be concentrating on infection rates; if rates are pushing above 10% (placebo-controlled) this safety feature could become a significant drag to dapagliflozin’s market penetration.
Degludec: This year’s ADA will provide the first look at Novo Nordisk’s next generation insulin analogue, Degludec, in comparison to market leading basal insulin, sanofi-aventis’ Lantus. Phase II data reportedly demonstrates that Degludec thrice-weekly is comparable to Lantus over 16 weeks. This drug is therefore shaping up to be a potential blockbuster; further Phase III data is awaited with interest.