Slowly, but ever so surely, the diabetes treatment landscape is evolving along two continuums. The first is the world of glucose management, in which innovation is the integration of therapeutic products with digital, technology, and information management to deliver better outcomes. There are significant investments and collaborations as companies work to define the model, focused primarily on Type 1 diabetes. While Type 2 diabetes is also a disease of elevated glucose, the patient and behavioral component are so strikingly different.
We wonder:
– How much of what is being built for Type 1 can be applied for Type 2?
– Why isn’t there more effort on applying the innovation into Type 2 DM where the societal
burden is so profound?
The 2nd continuum is the integration of a more wholistic therapeutic management of the progressive, multi-organ disease that is Type 2 Diabetes. This movement, driven by the product innovation of SGLT-2 inhibitors, has shifted the worldview from glucose management to cardiovascular risk reduction, and is now chugging aggressively towards chronic kidney disease. It creates a challenging dynamic for pharma companies who, in the words of Wayne Gretzky, need to “skate where the puck is going to be”, and not where it is today.