College of Pharmacy
HelixTalk Episode #66 - What’s new in the diabetes world? Tapas style!
Date posted: September 5, 2017, 6:00 am
In this episode, we discuss updates in diabetes management that includes nuances from the ADA’s Standards of Care 2017. We also review some newer pharmacologic agents, a fixed dose GLP-1 agonist and basal insulin combinations.
Key Concepts
- Diabetes management is ever evolving and thus reviewing newly published guidelines can help you stay current while providing diabetes patient care.
- One of the more recent advancements in diabetic drug therapy are fixed dose combination basal insulin and GLP-1 agonist products. Two products include Xultophy (insulin degludec + liraglutide) [pronounced ZUl-TOh-PHEE] and Soliqua (insulin glargine + lixisenatide) [pronounced Sol-EEk-WAA].
- These basal insulin + GLP-1 agonist combination products may be best suited for those with type-2 diabetes who are on either of the individual agents and want to minimize the number of injections and co-pays, but overall they do come with dosing limitations due to fixed dose combination.
- Xultophy and Soliqua do not provide as much weight loss benefit as compared to GLP-1 only therapy. If patients are switched from GLP-1 only therapy, some weight gain has been noted due to basal insulin component. Patient education regarding hypoglycemia should be emphasized because basal insulin component may delay recovery from hypoglycemia.
References
- American Diabetes Association. Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes-2017. Diabetes Care 2017;40(Suppl. 1):S1–S135.
- Xultophy (iDegLira) [prescribing information]. Plainsboro, NJ: Novo Nordisk A/S; 2016.
- Soliqua (LixiLan) [prescribing information]. Bridgewater, NJ: Sanofi Aventis U.S. LLC; 2016.