Diabetes

MINNEAPOLIS — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a professional glucose monitoring system made by Medtronic, the company said.

WHAT IT MEANS AND WHY IT'S IMPORTANT — If there are 366 million diabetics worldwide, that means that the U.S. piece of that sugar-free pie is 7.1%. And if the U.S. diabetes population grows by more than 50.8% over the next two decades, as the International Diabetes Foundation attests, that'll mean there will be 38.6 million diabetics in this country by 2030. That's a lot of diabetes education that needs to happen between now and then, and what better place to have that happen than at the neighborhood drug store?

PRINCETON, N.J. — Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca presented an analysis Wednesday of 14 clinical trials at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions in Orlando, Fla., the companies said.

The phase-2b and phase-3 trials all involved the investigational Type 2 diabetes drug dapagliflozin and, the companies said, showed that use of the drug did not lead to an unacceptable risk to adult patients' cardiovascular health compared with other treatments.

LONDON — GlaxoSmithKline announced the results from the first of eight phase-3 clinical trials that examined the efficacy of albiglutide in the treatment of Type 2 diabetes.

The Harmony 7 trial was a 32-week, head-to-head, open-label, noninferiority study that compared albiglutide, an investigational once weekly glucagon-like peptide-1 agonist, with once-daily liraglutide. According to the results, patients administered GSK's drug saw a 0.78% reduction in HbA1C, while patients administered liraglutide saw a 0.99% reduction in HbA1C.

SAN DIEGO — The Food and Drug Administration has approved a new insulin-delivery system for Type 1 diabetes made by Tandem Diabetes Care, the company said Wednesday.

Tandem announced the approval of the T:slim, a pump that the company said is the first to have a color touch screen and is the smallest insulin pump system available, in addition to being one of the first to be approved under the FDA's new Infusion Pump Improvement initiative.

WASHINGTON — Rite Aid, UnitedHealth Group and the YMCA are partnering to offer community-based programs to combat Type 2 diabetes in the Washington, D.C., area through the Diabetes Prevention and Control Alliance, the three companies said.

BRUSSELS — In line with World Diabetes Day, which was held Nov. 14, the International Diabetes Foundation projected that the number of people in the world living with diabetes is expected to rise from 366 million in 2011 to 552 million by 2030.

IDF said the statistic equates to approximately three new cases every 10 seconds, or almost 10 million per year. The organization also estimated that as many as 183 million people are unaware that they have diabetes.

The figures were released in the fifth edition of IDF's Diabetes Atlas.

NEW YORK — In support of National Diabetes Month, Colgate Total is donating $100,000 to help support Stop Diabetes, a movement launched by the American Diabetes Association to help educate and increase awareness of the link between oral health and diabetes.