Drugs and devices for glucose management
Easing the burden of glucose management
Today’s therapies to manage T1D save lives, but achieving tight control over blood-glucose levels remains a daily challenge for those living with type 1 diabetes (T1D). Our Improving Lives Program is committed to making glucose management much better and safer through groundbreaking research and clinical trials that aim to develop new drugs and devices to help people keep their blood-sugar levels within a healthy range more of the time, with less work.
Program goals
Create next-generation insulins, including:
- Glucose-responsive insulin that automatically responds to changes in blood glucose
- Ultra-rapid insulin that works faster, more closely mimicking the insulin naturally produced in the pancreas
- Liver-targeted insulin that gets to the liver where it can be more effective
Discover combination therapies—using insulin and other drugs—to dramatically improve daily glucose management, including:
- Insulin and pramlintide co-formulations, which have the potential to be more effective than insulin alone
- SGLT inhibitors, which are approved for use in type 2 diabetes (and, in Europe and Japan, for T1D)
- GLP-1 treatments that are approved for type 2 diabetes
Support the development of better, smaller devices, including:
- Continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) with continuous ketone monitoring
- Smaller, easier to wear CGMs and insulin pumps
- Improved algorithms, such as those that do not require the user to manually input insulin dosage at mealtimes
Research progress in drugs and devices for glucose management
2024
vTv Therapeutics receives funding from the Breakthrough T1D Fund
vTv will use this financing to fund a phase III clinical trial of cadisegliatin (TTP399), an adjunct therapy to insulin for people with T1D.
Learn More About This Research2023
Tidepool, a Breakthrough T1D-funded nonprofit organization, receives FDA approval for Tidepool Loop
Tidepool Loop is an algorithm through an app designed to automatically deliver insulin to people with T1D through a system of connected insulin pumps and CGMs.
Read More About Tidepool LoopStudy suggests a GLP-1 treatment increases insulin production in newly diagnosed
Clinical trial participants saw an increase in C-peptide, which shows that their bodies were making more insulin after being on the GLP-1 therapy.
Learn More About This Clinical Trial2022
FDA approves the Senseonics Eversense® CGM
The Eversense is the first and only long-term implantable CGM system, and the E3 includes technology that extends its use for up to 6 months.
Read More About This TechnologyBreakthrough T1D joins Civica to make low-cost insulin available
Civica will manufacture and distribute low-cost biosimilar insulin options and enable anyone to purchase insulin at no more than $30/vial or $55/box of five pens, regardless of insurance status.
Read More About This InitiativeOur approach
Insulin therapy must be calculated carefully, based on food intake, exercise, stress, illness, and other (often unpredictable) factors. As a result, people with T1D spend hours a day with blood-sugar levels outside the recommended range, putting them at risk for dangerous high- and low-blood-sugar episodes. Our goal is to make T1D easier—and less burdensome—to live with.
Learn more about our research
We are tackling the complications of T1D, including eye, kidney, and heart disease, and the emotional burden that comes with the condition
Disease-modifying therapies change the course of T1D for everyone affected by it—and those yet to be—by slowing or halting the progression of the disease, preventing it from ever occurring, and reversing it entirely.
Our goal is to grow insulin-producing beta cells in a laboratory and discover a way to keep them safe inside the body without the need for chronic immunosuppression.
