A Shot in the Arm - Jason Burke on Health and Life Sciences

I was actually unaware of Jerry's work in this area, but as a diabetic himself, he has been a long-standing advocate for diabetes education, prevention, and treatment.  Jerry's story, as well as the story of basketball Hall-of-Famer Dominique Wilkins, are covered in a PhRMA-sponsored public-affairs television program called Sharing Miracles that features real-life stories from people with diabetes.  I've not seen the show, but they played a brief clip of it during the press conference and it looked interesting.

Here are some interesting facts from today's event:

• Diabetes is the fifth deadliest disease in the US, and the seventh leading cause of death overall.  The total annual economic cost of diabetes in 2007 was estimated to be $174 billion.
  
  
• Somewhere between 600,000 to 1 million people in North Carolina alone are diabetic, and it is considered an epidemic.  One third of the people who have diabetes do not know it.  North Carolina has the 10th highest prevalence of diabetes in the US.  The state has an initiative called the N.C. Diabetes Prevention and Control Program focused on education and community engagement.
  
  
• Across the US, new cases of diabetes has risen more than 90% in adults over the past decade to an estimated 30 million Americans.  Another 57 million are pre-diabetic.  Adults with diabetes have heart disease death rates about two to four times higher than adults without diabetes.

There are currently 183 medicines under research for diabetes: 26 for Type I, 133 for Type II, 15 for unspecified, and 19 for diabetes-related conditions. Of those medicines, it is interesting to see the distribution of research progress.  About 75% of the compounds are in either phase 1 or phase 2 research (about evenly split), so though these medicines may be promising, it will be a while before most of them get to market.  And though companies had multiple products in the pipeline, only 4 companies show as high as 8-12 products they were working on (GSK, Lilly, Roche, and AZ).

Considering the rise in the unemployed, the event also highlighted help available to patients in need through the Partnership for Prescription Assistance (www.pparx.org or 1-888-4PPA-NOW).  This program provides medicines for patients that are uninsured and unable to afford them.  PPA has helped more than 227,700 people in North Carolina and 5.7 million patients nationwide.  This initiative is supported by a tour across the country in a giant orange bus: if you live in Utah, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Montana, they are coming to you this month.

For more information about diabetes, visit the American Diabetes Association, www.diabetes.org.