Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome and Obesity (Feb 2020)
Comparative Effectiveness of Long-Acting GLP-1 Receptor Agonists in Type 2 Diabetes: A Short Review on the Emerging Data
Abstract
Richard A Chudleigh,1 Julia Platts,2 Stephen C Bain1,3 1Singleton Hospital, Swansea Bay University Health Board, Swansea, UK; 2Diabetes Centre, University Hospital Llandough, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, Cardiff, UK; 3Diabetes Research Unit Cymru, Swansea University Medical School, Swansea, UKCorrespondence: Richard A Chudleigh Email [email protected]: Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists have been available as glucose-lowering therapies for people with type 2 diabetes since 2006, when twice-daily exenatide was licenced. Since then, advances in peptide chemistry and delivery have allowed for once-daily and more recently once-weekly (QW) delivery of peptides in this class and there are currently three QW “long-acting” GLP-1 receptor agonists available in clinical practice. This short review describes the therapeutic landscape that is occupied by the modern type 2 diabetes glucose-lowering therapies with a particular focus on long-acting GLP-1 receptor agonists. The efficacy and side-effect profiles of the available QW GLP-1 receptor agonists are discussed, focusing on head-to-head clinical trial comparisons. There is also an appraisal of the cardiovascular outcome trials, for which there has been an assessment of each of the QW GLP-1 receptor agonists, leading to clinical conclusions regarding their comparative effectiveness.Keywords: GLP-1, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular trial
