The professor. Paolo Pozzilli he is among the principal investigators of the international study
13 September 2017 - A 'sugar-killer' pill that is a candidate to become a new and promising anti-diabetes drug. It is theUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma thethe only Italian university involved in the Phase 3 trial of Sotagliflozin, the orally taken tablet likely to be available on the market within one year and represents a potential revolution in the field of type 1 diabetes care.
The trial involved 133 centers located in 19 countries around the world and the results, just published in the New England Journal of Medicine, were presented at the European Congress on Diabetes (EASD) underway in Lisbon. The professor. Paolo Pozzilli, Professor of Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases at UCBM, is among the principal investigators of the research: “The drug has been shown to lower blood sugar and glycated hemoglobin, reducing the daily dose of insulin needed by patients. This may mean a lower risk of long-term complications.". The new tablet, which promises to improve patients' quality of life by erasing sudden changes in their glycemic levels, has also proved effective in avoiding hypoglycemia, stabilizing blood pressure and promoting weight loss.
The new molecule belongs to a family of drugs that have so far only been tested for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, which arises as a result of obesity or poor eating habits. Clinical trials on sotagliflozin's 'relatives' had recently demonstrated the ability to reduce mortality by one-third in patients with type 2 diabetes from all causes. Also for this reason, the challenge now opening up for researchers will be that of “verify experimentally whether this molecule, like the 'cousins' validated for type 2 diabetes, may have similar effects on mortality also in patients with juvenile diabetes”, concludes Pozzilli.
