The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 275 No 7360 p436
8 October 2005

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DPP-IV inhibitor better tolerated than metformin

Vildagliptin, a dipeptidyl peptidase-IV inhibitor, is better tolerated than metformin and achieves similar sustained reductions in HbA1c levels, data presented at a Novartis research and development meeting last month showed.

From baseline HbA_1c levels of 8.7 per cent, vildagliptin-treated patients’HbA_1c levels fell to 7.56 per cent, compared with 7.40 per cent for metformin.

Neither treatment caused weight gain, but metformin-treated patients experienced more diarrhoea (26 per cent compared with 6 per cent) and nausea (10 per cent compared with 3 per cent).

Studies of another DPP-IV inhibitor, Merck’s sitagliptin (MK-0431), have shown that it is also efficacious, well-tolerated and weight-neutral. The results were presented at last month’s European Association for the Study of Diabetes meeting in Athens.

DPP-IV inhibitors, also known as incretin enhancers, help maintain levels of the incretin hormone glucagon-like-peptide, which augments insulin secretion following meals and is deficient in pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes.