A new experimental weekly diabetes drug taspoglutide from Roche was found in a phase III trial as good as Sanofi-Aventis's daily insulin treatment Lantus or glargine in controlling blood sugar, Reuters reported.

In another phase II trial on the diabetes medicine, taspoglutide performed better than a placebo in overweight patients.

Roche reportedly licensed Taspoglutide from France's IPsen in 2006 and the diabetes drug has already had a few competitors in the GLP-1 drug market.

Diabetes drugs in the same category include Novo Nordisk's Victoza, Eli Lilly and Amylin's Byetta LAR which was found better than Lantus.  Victoza has already been approved in Europe.

The new drug was tolerated well in both trials.  The most common adverse effects in overweight patients were nausea and vomiting.

Early this year, GlaxoSmithKline completed a trial showing that its experimental GLP-1 diabetes drug Syncria was more effective than Byetta in controlling blood sugar in diabetics.

GLP-1 or glucagon-like peptide-1 is a gut hormone or a transcription product from the proglucagon gene, which is secreted in the intestinal L cell, according to Wikipedia.

GLP-1 boosts insulin secretion from the pancreas, decreases glucagon secretion from the pancreas, inhibits acid secretion and gastric empting in the stomach, promotes insulin sensitivity and decreases food intake by increasing satiety.

There are some safety concerns including an association between the diabetes drug and cancer. Reuters cited Jefferies analysts as saying preclinical carcinogenicity data on taspoglutide early next year.

An estimated 20 million Americans live with type 2 diabetes in the United States.   Worldwide the condition affects 180 million people.

By Jimmy Downs