Cost of treating Type 1 diabetes could double to $340bn

Cost of treating Type 1 diabetes could double to $340bn

19 October 2011

The cost of treating Type 1 diabetes for Australia is a massive $170bn – and the bill could double.

Diabetes is the world’s fastest growing chronic disease affecting 220 million people worldwide. In Australia, it is the sixth leading cause of death with the total number of sufferers (diagnosed and undiagnosed) estimated to be 1.7 million people, one in 13 of the population.

Type 1 diabetes – also known as juvenile diabetes - affects 10 per cent of all sufferers and the cost of treatment is around $1 million per person over a lifetime.

“In Australia the incidence of Type 1 diabetes has doubled over the last 20 years,” says Professor Bob Elliott, who has spent over 50 years researching the disease.

“This is a very worrying and perplexing trend. Australia is now where Finland was 15 years ago.”

Finland has the worst incidence of Type 1 diabetes affecting 50 people per 100,000 under 15 years. The figures for Australia are 25 per 100,000.

Most Type 1 sufferers have to inject themselves with insulin several times a day to maintain the right balance of blood glucose levels. One in five develop a condition called unaware hypoglycaemia where they have no awareness when their blood glucose changes. This can be extremely dangerous for instance if they are driving a car. Unaware hypoglycemia is responsible for up to 8 per cent of deaths and many disease related complications.

For some patients there is the possibility of having islets transplanted from human cadavers in an attempt to get their pancreas to secrete more insulin but the risk of rejection is high. This requires immuno-suppressant drugs which are expensive - each treatment costs around $250,000 - and can have unpleasant and dangerous side effects.

“These procedures that are inherently difficult and there are question marks about their long-term effectiveness and cost/benefit,” says Prof. Elliott.

Instead Prof. Elliott is championing a ground breaking new cell implant therapy called DIABECELL® which aims to help restore insulin regulation to near-normal levels, reducing the need for regular injections and constant monitoring of blood glucose levels.

Living Cell Technologies, the company he founded and where he is Medical Director, has developed a means of implanting pancreatic islet cells from pigs through a simple keyhole procedure to produce a self-regulating source of insulin in the patient’s body. The pigs come from a herd rescued from the remote Auckland islands and have effectively been in quarantine for the last 200 years. Unlike other pigs that can carry viruses and bacteria this herd is unique in that it is biocertified pathogen-free.

“What this means is that the procedure can be achieved without the use of immuno-suppressive drugs which is a world first”, explains Prof. Elliott.

Living Cell Technologies announced today that a Japanese company, Otsuka Pharmaceutical Factory, Inc., had agreed to invest $25m in a joint venture with it to accelerate the development of DIABECELL®. With clinical trials progressing in New Zealand, Russia and Argentina, Prof. Elliott is confident that the treatment will be available within three years.

For further information: www.lctglobal.com

ENDS

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