VIDEO: New advances create 'exciting time' in diabetes treatment

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This is a really exciting time to be involved in helping people who have diabetes. I think across all the different types of diabetes, we are actually seeing substantial advances. I think in type 2 diabetes, the kind of extra glycemic benefits of the new medications such as the SGLT2 inhibitors and the incretin-based agents like GLP-1 receptor agonists and the twincretin GIP-1 receptor agonists have really foundationally changed the way we address type 2 diabetes.

I think the main thing I would want to take from that is that historically we just had agents that treated glucose. And we could lower the glucose, and we could reduce microvascular complications, but most people with diabetes, at least type 2, die from macrovascular complications such as heart disease and stroke. And now we have agents that not only lower glucose but have substantial reductions in those outcomes. So I feel like those are really exciting, and I think that these are fields that are just beginning to grow, and you're going to see more and more agents in this area.

In type 1 diabetes, we have had finally some real impact on being able to identify people who are at high risk and actually implement screening programs for that. And we have our first agent that can at least delay the onset of clinically apparent type 1 diabetes and those who are already in process. And so that's exciting. The technology for sensing continues to get better. So our tools for patients and our tools for clinicians are moving rapidly. And you can imagine that if this is not what you do full time, it's hard to keep up.