Valeritas insulin delivery system may help reduce health care costs

Results of a retrospective study analysis evaluating Valeritas, Inc.’s lead product were recently released, according to a company press release.

The product, V-Go, is a simple, wearable, basal-bolus insulin delivery system for patients with type 2 diabetes that may help reduce management costs by improving glycemic control and reducing insulin doses.

“Patients with poorly controlled diabetes are at higher risk for diabetes complications, which can have substantial health and cost implications,” Rosemarie Lajara, MD, president of the Diabetes Centers of America, said in a press release. “We found that patients who switched to V-Go experienced significant blood glucose improvement as well as a reduction in their total daily insulin. These findings support a positive impact on health care and pharmacy costs and could be applied more broadly at the health system and payer level.”

In the study, researchers evaluated 103 patients with type 2 diabetes all of whom switched from their existing therapies to V-Go to determine the impact on health and economic benefits after about 97 days on V-Go. Significant improvement in HbA1c was found among 74% of the patients as well as a significant reduction in the total daily dose of insulin administered.

Direct pharmacy savings of $1,080 per patient annually and $88,884 in potential total health care cost savings for a subset of the patient population were found.

“It is our goal for the millions of people living with type 2 diabetes on insulin therapy to enjoy the same benefits with V-Go that those in this study did,” Kristine Peterson, CEO of Valeritas said in the release. “It is remarkable how a simple and easy change from previous therapies to V-Go can make a welcomed difference for patients. Furthermore, these results were achieved at a potential cost reduction and economic advantage for the health care system.”