Pox­el, part­ner Sum­it­o­mo Dainip­pon taste suc­cess in first piv­otal test for oral di­a­betes drug

The French meta­bol­ic ex­perts at Pox­el and their Asian part­ners at Sum­it­o­mo Dainip­pon Phar­ma have hit a home run with the first late-stage Japan­ese test of their oral di­a­betes drug imeglim­in, which bodes well for the pair of Phase III tri­als ex­pect­ed to read­out lat­er this year and fu­els the block­buster ex­pec­ta­tions tagged on the mi­to­chon­dr­i­al ther­a­py.

The drug be­longs to a new chem­i­cal class of oral agents called ‘glim­ins’ that si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly tar­get all three key or­gans in­volved in di­a­betes: the pan­creas, the liv­er and the mus­cles. Imeglim­in is de­signed to work on the two main de­fects seen in pa­tients with type II di­a­betes: by in­creas­ing in­sulin se­cre­tion in the pan­creas, in a glu­cose-de­pen­dent man­ner; and by de­creas­ing the ex­cess pro­duc­tion of glu­cose by the liv­er, while en­hanc­ing ‘in­sulin sen­si­tiv­i­ty’ in the mus­cles.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER