Good News in the Chinese Diabetes Field and Several Original Research Drugs Underway

Glad tidings came recently in terms of supervision of two domestic diabetes drugs. Semaglutide, Novo Nordisk's blockbuster hypoglycemic drug, advanced to the administrative approval stage (acceptance number: JXSS2000005/6) on April 20. Dorzagliatin, Hua Medicine's new diabetes drug, has been accepted with its marketing application by CDE in the past few days. 

Semaglutide (Ozempic) is known to be a long-acting GLP-1 receptor agonist developed by Novo Nordisk. Its sales have spiked since its launch with 3.248 billion US dollars in 2020. Furthermore, Novo Nordisk has also made available an oral version of Semaglutide (trade name: Rybelsus). 

Dorzagliatin appears to be the world's first dual-acting glucokinase activator under development. It aims mainly to recover the damaged blood glucose homeostasis of patients with type 2 diabetes by fixing the defect of the glucose sensor function of glucokinase. It should be noted that more than 20 GKA drugs have progressed to the clinical research stage since the publication of the pharmacological basis of glucokinase activator (GKA) in 2001, and dorzagliatin seems to be the fastest and the first GKA diabetes treatment drugs submitted for new drug marketing application in the world. If you are searching for Semaglutide, then PharmaSources is your best choice. On PharmaSources, you could find various kinds of medical and surgical supplies. There are numerous surgical supply companies and healthcare supply companies on PharmaSouces. If you want to buy medical nursing supplies, then access to PharmaSouces. You can also find pharmaceutical ingredients there.

Diabetes is found to be a major public health problem next only to cancer and cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. China has the largest number of diabetic patients in the world. The survey data released by BMJ in 2020 showed that, (according to the diagnostic criteria of the American Diabetes Association), total diabetic patients in China are as high as approximately 130 million, of which the awareness rate and the treatment rate of type 2 diabetes was only 43.3% and 49.0% respectively.

A plurality of diabetes drugs (beyond compound preparations) have been endorsed in China, which roughly fall into the following categories. Data from Industrial Securities disclosed the scale of China's diabetes drug market in 2019 was approximately 53.98 billion yuan. Frost&Sullivan forecasts that the annual growth rate of China's hypoglycemic drug market will climax at 18.0% in 2021. Such market will continue to rise steadily from 2021 to 2030 with a slowed rate is expected to expand to 259.2 billion yuan in 2030. 

Insulin and traditional oral drugs such as biguanides, sulfonylureas and α-glycosidase inhibitors still account for a big part in China's diabetes market Data from Southwest Securities displayed that insulin and other traditional oral drugs accounted for 46.3% and 41.1% of China's diabetes market in 2019. DPP-4 inhibitors, GLP-1 receptor agonists, and SGLT-2 inhibitors, all of which are antidiabetic drugs, represented 9.2%, 2.2% and 1.4% respectively. 

As shown in global diabetes drug TOP10 rankings in 2019 and 2020, DPP-4 inhibitors, GLP-1 receptor agonists and SGLT-2 inhibitors held pivotal positions in the global diabetes market, among which GLP-1 receptor agonists and SGLT-2 inhibitors tend to share a greater ratio. 

 In contrast with the global diabetes market, the market potential of DPP-4 inhibitors, GLP-1 receptor agonists and SGLT-2 inhibitors in the diabetes market in China has not been properly released, which is highly associated with patients' poor awareness, price and other factors. The domestic diabetes market structure is bound to shift in the future along with the affirmation and standardization of new-type hypoglycemic drugs in the treatment of diabetes in the guidelines, and the influence of factors such as price, medical insurance, and centralized procurement. 

So far, R&D of most of the approved hypoglycemic drugs excluding benaglutide and loxenatide, are performed by foreign pharmaceutical companies. Despite of many diabetes generic drugs approved in China, Chinese pharmaceutical companies have independently developed a diversity of new diabetes drugs in recent years, backed by their increasing R&D capabilities, such as Chiglitazar Sodium from Chipscreen and Hengliflozin and Retagliptin from Hengrui Medicine, Rongliflozin from Guangdong HEC, HSK7653 from Haisco Pharmaceutical, etc. Among them, Chiglitazar Sodium, independently researched and developed by Shenzhen Chipscreen, is known to be a peroxisome proliferative receptor (PPAR) full activator approved for global compound invention patents, which is an insulin sensitizer with a new mechanism of action and has been submitted for marketing. 

When it comes to effect targets, DPP-4 inhibitors, SGLT-2 inhibitors and GLP-1 receptor agonists are deemed as hot spots in the domestic diabetes R&D spectrum, and we look forward to acknowledging that these original diabetes drugs will be approved in China as soon as possible.