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Pediatric patients afflicted with type 2 diabetes now have another option for treatment.
The Food and Drug Administration recently approved the first non-insulin drug approved to treat type 2 diabetes in pediatric patients since metformin was approved for pediatric use in 2000.
The name of the drug is Victoza (liraglutide) injection for treatment of pediatric patients 10 years or older with type 2 diabetes. Victoza already had been approved for adult patients since 2010.
“The approval of liraglutide for use in pediatric patients is an additional option in addition to lifestyle intervention and metformin to treat youth diagnosed with type 2 diabetes,” William Cefalu, the ADA’s chief scientific, medical and mission officer, told the FDA Reporter.
“As detailed in the ADA’s Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes (Standards of Care), the ADA recommends a personalized diabetes care plan for each individual, and as such, consideration for the needs of each patient are necessary to determine if liraglutide is an appropriate addition.”
Cefalu said there has been a rise in the incidence of type 2 diabetes among youth in the past 20 years has risen to nearly 5,000 new cases each year.
“The latest evidence suggests that type 2 diabetes in youth is different not only from type 1 diabetes but it is also different from type 2 diabetes in adults,” Cefalu said. It has unique features such as a more rapidly progressive decline in b-cell function and accelerated development of diabetes complications.
“This means that youth with diabetes will likely experience serious complications much earlier in life, therefore, we encourage continued research to continue to find additional options to treat youth with type 2 diabetes in order to improve long-term outcomes and prevent complications.”
According to a FDA press release, Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes, occurring when the pancreas cannot make enough insulin to keep blood sugar at normal levels.
“The FDA encourages drugs to be made available to the widest number of patients possible when there is evidence of safety and efficacy,” Lisa Yanoff, acting director of the division of metabolism and endocrinology products in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in a statement. “Victoza has now been shown to improve blood sugar control in pediatric patients with type 2 diabetes. The expanded indication provides an additional treatment option at a time when an increasing number of children are being diagnosed with this disease.”
