New diabetes drug shows promise in treating diabetic retinop

Diabetes is a systemic disease that impacts many body functions including eye-sight. So far, there hasn’t been a drug used for treating so called diabetic retinopathy, a severe eye damage caused like the name says by diabetes type 2.

Diabetic retinopathy has been only treated by laser surgery, which is both difficult and painful and is used in late stages of the disease.

Drug manufacturer Eli Lilly and Co. has produced a drug called Arxxant, which is still in the experimental phase but showed beneficial in preventing eye damage during clinical trials.
This is one of a kind of drugs because there still aren’t any drugs made for treating diabetic retinopathy.

It is estimated that the drug will become Lilly’s blockbuster with sales over $1 billion a year especially because the drug has no concurrence on the market.

FDA decided to speed up its normal one-year review time for Arxxant, since there are no similar drugs for the diabetic eye disease.

Although Arxxant proved to slow down the disease, it is not cure-all drug and can not cure the disease but it certainly can improve lives of the patients.
Trials showed that Arxxant reduced the risk of vision loss by 41 % compared to a placebo among patients who suffered from diabetic retinopathy. They also showed that it is safe and causes few adverse reactions. It also didn’t have any influence on patients’ blood-sugar levels or blood pressure and the only common side effect was indigestion.

With such important function and little side effects, Arxxant deserves to become the leader on it’s market.