Ask Dave Taylor: Tech and Business

Friday

What's Pfizer's new Exubera for diabetes?

I just read that Pfizers new drug Exubera (where do they come up with these weird names anyway?) has been approved by an FDA Panel and is expected to gain full FDA approval. What is Exubera and why are diabetics so interested in this new drug?

There are over 18 million diabetics in the United States alone, a mix of juvenile diabetes and adult-onset diabetes, and a large percentage of them are trapped having to take daily insulin injections, a process that's painful, a hassle and sufficiently tedious that doctors estimate that a significant minority of diabetics don't follow the treatment plan they're prescribed, to their detriment.

Exubera, from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, is the first inhalant insulin drug that will let patients treat their diabetes as easily as current asthma sufferers use inhalants to keep their illness in check.

This is very big news both for diabetics, who are poised to...