Aug 9 2017 – Oral Insulin Can Change the Diabetes Market Fundamentally and right now the company closest to succeeding in this endeavor is Oramed Pharmaceuticals (ORMP). Almost all other companies, including just recently Novo Nordisk, have given up.
- Diabetes accounts for 11% of US healthcare spending
- Oramed has a meeting with the FDA on August 31 regarding a Phase III protocol for its oral insulin candidate ORMD-0801
- Phase IIb results were encouraging, showing tighter blood sugar control over placebo
- ORMD-0801 won’t replace insulin injections, but could delay the need for them
- Recent listing of Oramed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange means imminent buying by index funds that follow the TASE.
Diabetes is responsible for $1 out of every $9 spent on healthcare in the United States. That’s 11%. 500 million people in the world have the disease. That’s 7% of the Earth’s human population.
The major difference between diabetes and almost any other niche market in healthcare is that the diabetes market can be changed fundamentally just by altering the insulin administration route.
Generally speaking, making an injectable therapy orally available increases sales, patient compliance, outcomes, etc. But with diabetes, if an oral route to insulin administration makes it to market, it could change things in a much more fundamental way.
Diabetes is so huge because treatment gets more and more expensive and difficult as the disease progresses, no matter how well the condition is managed. This is due to insulin injections not perfectly mimicking how insulin is stored and released in healthy people.
source – Seeking Alpha https://seekingalpha.com/article/4097040-oramed-phase-iii-tel-aviv-stock-exchange
