FDA Approves First Drug to Delay Onset of Type 1 Diabetes
For the first time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a drug that can delay the development of type 1 diabetes.The intravenous drug, teplizumab-mzwv (Tzield), is for adults and children 8 years and older who are at high risk for type 1 diabetes but haven’t yet been diagnosed with the condition and have not yet become reliant on insulin shots. Tzield is in a new family of medicines that slow the immune system’s attack on insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, which is the underlying cause of type 1 diabetes.“Today’s approval of a first-in-class therapy adds an important new treatment option for certain at-risk patients,” said John Sharretts, MD, the director of the Division of Diabetes, Lipid Disorders, and Obesity in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and…