Antidiabetic Drug-combo Remains Effective After Two Years

Combination of dapagliflozin and exenatide controlled diabetes better than single drug alone, as per the multi-center double-blind, phase 3, randomized controlled trial, published in the journal Diabetes Care. "Many therapies in diabetes management are short-lived, which is why it's useful to test for long-term effect," says senior author Serge Jabbour, MD, director of the division of endocrinology and the Diabetes Center at Thomas Jefferson University.

"Our study showed that a combo regimen of dapagliflozin and exenatide continued to control patients' glucose for over two years. This is a very encouraging."

695 diabetic adults who were not controlled with metformin, were randomly assigned to three study groups. One group received weekly exenatide injections in addition to metformin. Another group took daily dapagliflozin pills in addition to metformin, and a third group received both drugs together.

The two classes of drugs act together improving the effects on a number of diabetes indicators. They promote and maintain better glucose control and produce additive weight loss and improve blood pressure.

Patients receiving both drugs had better glycemic control than patients receiving just one of the drugs - and demonstrated, for the first time, that the effect was stable for the duration of the extended two-year study period.

The study also showed a clinically relevant reduction in weight and blood pressure, with no unexpected safety concerns related to the drug combination in the study participants.

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"These two classes work synergistically to help control a Type-2 diabetes patient's glucose levels, and other measures associated with diabetes," says Dr. Jabbour. "We can now feel more confident about prescribing these medications long term."

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Source-Medindia