USFDA recommended suspension of Avandia sales in February, but no action was taken.  Looks like Saudi Arabia is taking the lead on this one. 

Don't bother trying to find this on Google Health, by the way...InteractMD.com readers hear it first!

Annals of Internal Medicine got some coverage today over a letter suggesting that the problem with metformin compliance is that the pill itself smells bad. Good for a little interest. Drug's been around for a long time, there are a lot of good alternatives.

Funny these stories never seem to be about drugs that are on patent.

None of the authors of the peer-reviewed letter disclosed any conflict of interest, so I assume the letter itself was sent in genuine clinical concern. I am just amazed that a letter from a medical journal made such an impact in the press.

This is one of those press release announcements made completely independent of any journal article or conference presentation so take it for what it's worth but still the information was compelling: Byetta controls diabetes better than sitagliptin and pioglitazone. The clinical trial details are available on Pipelinereview.com which is a great site or is that just me? http://www.pipelinereview.com/content/view/26156/114/ Basically the injectable exenatide reduced HbA1c better than the oral meds and led to impressive weight loss.

Getting closer to an FDA approval a company demonstrates "bioequivalence" of their new plant-derived insulin versus conventional recombinant insulin. http://www.pipelinereview.com/content/view/25803/114/

Thanks for the question Ed Kearney. Looks like this idea is in the category of "inconsistent data probable biological plausibility not ready for prime time." 2008 study showed no lipid or glucose benefit in diabetic patients. Helpful to improve insulin resistance in mice 2008. Improvement in insulin sensitivity in healthy individuals. No effect in a randomized clinical trial of 60 diabetics 2007. Improvements in glucose and lipids seen in 60 less-ill diabetics 2003. Overall impression: the data are not very strong but it looks like there is some sort of biological effect.

A new study published in the December 10 online issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal reports that continued use of well known oral diabetes GlaxoSmithKline's drugs Avandia (rosiglitazone) and Actos (pioglitazone) almost doubles the risk of bone fractures in women with type 2 diabetes. Researchers had been aware that two thiazolidinedione (TZD) drugs for diabetes were correlated with fractures but the scope of the risk was not known. That is the reason why a study was constituted to know the efficacy of the diabetes drug. The lead researcher Dr.

Insulin pill enters clinical testing

Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) is an epidemic and alarming metabolic disorder. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that in 2005 the prevalence of diabetes in the United States was 20.8 million. Diabetes is diagnosed in 14.6 million persons and undiagnosed in 6.2 million. T2DM is 90% to 95% of prevalent diabetes. About 41 million people in the United States are believed to have pre-diabetes. The main etiologic pathways of T2DM are insulin resistance and lack of compensatory insulin secretion.

Byetta: Here comes trouble FDA warns of hemorrhage death