Participants are being recruited for a New Zealand study aiming to identify which personal factors predict people’s response to two different diabetes drugs: vildagliptin and pioglitazone.
The University of Auckland researchers said they hoped the study would eventually lead to people living with type 2 diabetes being prescribed medications personalised to their genetics, body size, ethnicity, age and other characteristics.
There are 12 classes of drugs that have been proven in large clinical trials internationally to manage type 2 diabetes. In New Zealand, half of these medications are funded, including the recently funded vildagliptin. “The problem is, medications work very differently in different people,” the research team said in a media release, “and at the moment doctors can only figure out the best match for an individual patient through trial and error”.
Associate Professor Rinki Murphy, endocrinologist and researcher at the university's medical school, said a ‘precision medicine’ approach to managing type 2 diabetes, which affected over 200,000 people in New Zealand, would have many benefits.
“Knowing who responds best to each type of diabetes drug would help patients get more effective medication earlier in their treatment, with fewer negative side effects, and improved health outcomes,” she said.
