Lixisenatide shaping up to rival Victoza
pharmafile | September 22, 2010 | News story | Research and Development | Lixisenatide, Sanofi-Aventis, diabetes
Data for Sanofi-Aventis’ injectable lixisenatide suggests it could rival Novo Nordisk’s drug Victoza.
Lixisenatide is a once-daily GLP-1 receptor agonist, and was studied as a monotherapy in patients with type II diabetes.
Victoza is also given as a once daily jab and last year was the first GLP-1 receptor agonist to reach the market, subsequently proving to be a major commercial success. Another competitor is Lilly’s Byetta, which has a slightly different mechanism and must be injected twice a day.
The lixisenatide results were presented at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) annual meeting in Stockholm, a key date for companies in the diabetes market (the data had been previewed by the company in April this year).
“These results demonstrated lixisenatide as a once daily GLP-1 agent with substantial A1C reduction and a pronounced effect on post-meal glucose control,” said Dr John Gerich of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and an investigator of the presented study.
“The pronounced effect on postprandial glucose control provides a rationale to investigate the combined effect of lixisenatide and long-acting insulins in patients with type II diabetes.”
As well as showing good control of blood sugar levels, the drug’s safety profile was generally good, with very few reports of hypogylcaemia in patients. Nausea was seen in up to 24% of patients, (depending on the regimen) but this was similar to levels seen in Victoza.
An important factor in the appeal of Victoza is the weight loss seen in many patients, and lixisenatide seems to produce similar results.
Companies are now in the early stages of developing oral versions of GLP-1 analogues, which will put pressure on lixisenatide to prove its value as an injectable.
Other competitor in the GLP-1 field are GSK’s Syncria (albiglutide) and Roche’s taspoglutide. Roche’s drug hit problems in phase III trials recently when nausea and vomiting caused many patients to drop out of the trials.
Andrew McConaghie
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