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New pill can deliver insulin

news.mit.edu

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Re: New pill can deliver insulin

#41

Post by arkades »

If this is at all attractive to people, it's going to make insulin so damned expensive.

The price of insulin is already rising: there aren't all that many generic manufacturers of it, leaving them in a competition-free market. If this takes off it's going to suck up a good chunk of the marketplace, and probably leave us with maybe one or two generic manufacturers - enough to have an effective monopoly. Insulin prices will spike the same way epi pens did.

Good tech. But sad re. what it's going to do to patients for a while.

Re: New pill can deliver insulin

#42

Post by cazum »

RPLong wrote: post #28
sithlord wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per a quick google <15% of type 2 diabetics use insulin. I would say this effects more type 1 diabetics than anything. Or are you trying to say peoples lifestyles are leading them to an autoimmune disease?

I'm saying Novo Nordisk produces insulin, and in doing so causes downward pressure on insulin prices thanks to basic economics. (When the supply of a good increases at the same level of demand, price falls.) This is true for both type 1 and type 2 diabetics. In Novo's case, they have two kinds of long-acting insulin analogue taken 1-2 times per day for both T1 and T2; they have to my knowledge the only ultra-long-act…

Insulin prices have inflated by about 500% over the past two decades in the United States.

Novo Nordisk's profits have seen a similar rise.

Now, im no economitician, but I'd wager a vial of Fiasp® that there's more than just supply and demand going on here.

Re: New pill can deliver insulin

#43

Post by coldpie »

m3nu wrote: post #35
vonmoltke wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eating fewer carbs is completely ineffective when your pancreas is not producing insulin in the first place.

I was talking about type 2 diabetes, not type 1. You're of course correct regarding type 1.

Speaking as a T1D, please always specify. It's a shame these two totally unrelated diseases have the same name.

Re: New pill can deliver insulin

#44

Post by ghkbrew »

sithlord wrote: post #24
RPLong wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus man. Novo has invented and produced more insulin in the last 30 years than any other company or organization. I get that you're disgruntled about the price of insulin; I am, too. But put the blame where it belongs, not on the people who are producing more and more insulin to accommodate more and more diabetic lifestyles and helping to drive the price down rather than up.

Per a quick google <15% of type 2 diabetics use insulin. I would say this effects more type 1 diabetics than anything. Or are you trying to say peoples lifestyles are leading them to an autoimmune disease?

Also, according to a quick google search only ~5% of diabetics are type 1, so there are still about 3 times as many type 2 diabetics taking insulin.

Regardless, I suspect he meant that more different types of insulin allow diabetics to take insulin in more different ways aka lifestyles. e.g. closed loop CGM vs a daily long acting insulin plus a short acting for meals.

Re: New pill can deliver insulin

#45

Post by RPLong »

cazum wrote: post #42
RPLong wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm saying Novo Nordisk produces insulin, and in doing so causes downward pressure on insulin prices thanks to basic economics. (When the supply of a good increases at the same level of demand, price falls.) This is true for both type 1 and type 2 diabetics. In Novo's case, they have two kinds of long-acting insulin analogue taken 1-2 times per day for both T1 and T2; they have to my knowledge the only ultra-long-act…

Insulin prices have inflated by about 500% over the past two decades in the United States. Novo Nordisk's profits have seen a similar rise. Now, im no economitician, but I'd wager a vial of Fiasp® that there's more than just supply and demand going on here.

Yes, there is more than supply and demand going on here, which explains why one company's pricing policies can't account for a 500% industry-wide increase. Novo is not a monopolist.

A lot has changed in the last 20 years. A lot of regulatory and insurance law changes. When the law mandates that we pay for all our medicine via 3rd party intermediaries, you can expect a corresponding price increase as those 3rd parties add their intermediary markup.

Re: New pill can deliver insulin

#46

Post by qazqwert »

or better go on a charboydred diet... and reveres the so called "chronical" diabetes

but it can be nice from type 1 diabetes the problem is how could you control the insulin level....

sure on some degree but still...

Re: New pill can deliver insulin

#47

Post by thomasfedb »

m3nu wrote: post #17

For the case of T2D, eating fewer carbs may be more effective than later reducing it with expensive insulin and fancy MIT pills. I often hear good stuff about these guys: https://www.virtahealth.com/ (no affiliation) edit: clarify that Virta is treating T2D primarily.

This is a common but dangerous misconception. The human body needs insulin to function, even without dietary carbohydrate. This is why insulin dosing includes basal (continuous background) as well as mealtime insulin.

Re: New pill can deliver insulin

#49

Post by jayalpha »

RPLong wrote: post #16
samcday wrote: post #4

> Once ingested, water dissolves a disk of sugar, using a spring to release a tiny needle made up almost entirely of freeze-dried insulin. The needle is injected into the stomach — which the patient can’t feel, owing to a lack of pain receptors in the stomach. Once the injection has occurred, the needle can break down in the digestive tract. That's some pretty impressive ingenuity. Also sounds kinda terrifying if the…

What doctors and researchers get wrong about diabetes is that pin-pricks and injections are not even remotely bad. I don't know a single diabetic who cares about injections and blood sugar tests. You get used to that within the first week of diagnosis. No, the unpleasant part of being diabetic is having to live every second of your life as an act of weighing how what you're currently doing is going to affect your blo…

"What doctors and researchers get wrong about diabetes is that pin-pricks and injections are not even remotely bad. I don't know a single diabetic who cares about injections and blood sugar tests. You get used to that within the first week of diagnosis."

Dude, you don't know many diabetics then. Companies spend billions of dollars to solve this problem.

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