It’s In the News! A look at the top diabetes stories and headlines happening now. Top stories this week: South Africa runs out of insulin pens - and why this could happen anywhere, once-weekly insulin is approved in Canada, update on Omnipod 5 with Dexcom G7 rollout, more older people are getting type 1 but more people are living longer with it, CGM at the Olympcs and more!
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Episode transcription with links:

Hello and welcome to Diabetes Connections In the News! I’m Stacey Simms and every other Friday I bring you a short episode with the top diabetes stories and headlines happening now.
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In the news is brought to you by Edgepark simplify your diabetes journey with Edgepark
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Quick note - the American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions is this weekend. That means new research studies will be released, technology announced, and likely lots of news will be made. I’m recording this before the conference starts - if there’s enough going on we may have an additional In the News next week.
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Our top story right now…
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No more insulin pens for South Africa.. .as the pharmaceutical industry shifts production priorities to blockbuster weight-loss drugs. Novo Nordisk, the company that has supplied South Africa with human insulin in pens for a decade, opted not to renew its contract, which expired last month. No other company has bid on the contract - to supply 14 million pens for the next three years, at about $2 per pen.
Novo Nordisk’s drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, which are widely prescribed in the U.S. for weight loss, are sold in single-use pens produced by many of the same contracted manufacturers who make the multidose insulin pens. A month’s supply of Ozempic in the United States costs about $1,000, far more than insulin.
Novo Nordisk dominates the global market for insulin in pens and has supplied South Africa since 2014. Eli Lilly, the other major producer, has indicated in recent months that it is struggling to keep up with the significant demand for its weight-loss drug Zepbound.
Novo Nordisk is continuing to supply human insulin in vials to South Africa, where more than four million people live with diabetes, but pens are considered much easier to use and more precise.
The vial system was phased out for most South Africans in 2014. But recently, South Africa’s National Department of Health instructed clinicians that they should teach patients how to use vials and syringes of insulin instead of pens.
I posted about this already and said this is a canary in the coal mine and everyone going to ADA should be asking Novo and Lilly about this. GLP medications are fantastic but insulin cannot be left behind.
www.nytimes.com/2024/06/19/he...
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Once a week basal insulin - for type 1 and type 2 - comes to Canada. Novo Nordisk announced that it’s version of insulin icodec will be available starting June 30th. They are calling it.. Awiqli - I promise I didn’t make that up. Canada is the first country to get the product.
Awiqli works as a time release of insulin over the course of a week. It is more expensive. And Canada's Drug Agency, which assesses drugs and recommends whether they should qualify for reimbursement under public drug plans, is still doing the math here. No word on private insurers coverage yet.
An FDA advisory board recently passed on approving weekly basal for people with type 1, saying the risk of low blood sugar was too great. But the full FDA hasn’t yet weighed in.

www.ctvnews.ca/health/world-s...
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The prevalence of people over 65 living with type 1 diabetes went up 180% in the past 30 years, a new study finds. That’s an increase of 1.3 million people over 65 in 1990 with the disease to 3.7 million in 2019, the authors noted in a study published on June 12 in The...