It’s In the News! A look at the top diabetes stories and headlines happening now. Top stories this week: The FTC sues PBMs over insulin pricing, a new CGM is approved in Europe, more news about GLP-1s but some research says it may not work as well for one population, diabetes camps are invited to apply for grants, and more!
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Episode transcription with links:
Hello and welcome to Diabetes Connections In the News! I’m Stacey Simms and every other Friday I bring you a short episode with the top diabetes stories and headlines happening now.
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The U.S. Federal Trade Commission sued the country's three largest pharmacy benefit managers on Friday, accusing them of steering diabetes patients towards higher priced insulin in order to reap millions of dollars in rebates from pharmaceutical companies.
The case accuses UnitedHealth Group Inc's (UNH.N), opens new tab Optum unit, CVS Health Corp's (CVS.N), opens new tab CVS Caremark and Cigna Corp's (CI.N), opens new tab Express Scripts of unfairly excluding lower cost insulin products from lists of drugs covered by insurers.
The three companies said in statements that the suit was baseless and defended their business practices, saying that they had lowered insulin prices for businesses, unions and patients.
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-ftc-sues-drug-gatekeepers-over-high-insulin-prices-2024-09-20/
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A new study finds metformin, may slow aging. Previous studies on "lower order" species have found that it can delay the onset of age-related diseases. Gotta say, this is only in animal studies right now, not people, human trials are next.
https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/diabetes-drug-metformin-aging/
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New research from the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine identifies a potential new approach to address the opioid overdose epidemic—which has devastated families and communities nationally.
The study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, suggests semaglutide is linked to lower opioid overdoses in people with opioid-use disorder (OUD) and type 2 diabetes (T2D).
Semaglutide, a glucagon-like peptide receptor (GLP-1R) molecule that decreases hunger and helps regulate blood sugar in T2D, is also the active component in the diabetes and weight-loss drugs Wegovy and Ozempic.
The research team—led by biomedical informatics professor Rong Xu—analyzed six years of electronic records of nearly 33,000 patients with OUD who also had T2D. The researchers used a statistical approach that mimics a randomized clinical trial.
They found patients prescribed semaglutide had a significantly lower risk for opioid overdose, compared to those who had taken any of eight other anti-diabetic medications, including other types of GLP-1R-targeting medications.
About 107,500 people died from drug overdoses nationally in 2023, mostly from opioids, according to the CDC. Despite effective medications to prevent overdoses from OUD, the CDC estimates only a quarter of those with OUD receive them and about half discontinue treatm