The USA Food and Drug Administration has approved a long-delayed inhalable diabetes medication to help patients control blood sugar levels during meals.
The FDA cleared MannKind Corp's Afrezza, a fast-acting form of insulin for adults with the most common form of diabetes, which affects more than 25 million Americans.
The decision comes more than three years after the agency first asked MannKind to run additional clinical studies on the drug.
Demand for diabetes treatments is surging globally as the prevalence of obesity explodes.
According to the World Health Organization, roughly 347 million people worldwide have the disease, a chronic condition in which the body either does not make enough insulin to break down the sugar in foods or uses insulin inefficiently.
It can lead to blindness, strokes, heart disease or death.
In type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease, the body does not use insulin properly.
Type 1 diabetes is usually diagnosed in children and young adults. In those cases, the body does not produce insulin.
Afrezza, an insulin powder, comes in a single-use cartridge and is designed to be inhaled at the start of a meal or within 20 minutes.
MannKind has said that patients using the drug can achieve peak insulin levels within 12 to 15 minutes. That compares to a wait of an hour-and-a-half or more after patients inject insulin.
The FDA said on Friday Afrezza was not a substitute for long-acting insulin and was a new option for controlling insulin levels during meals.
The agency approved Afrezza with a boxed warning - the strongest type - indicating that the drug should not be used in patients with chronic lung diseases, such as asthma and smoker's cough, due to reports of breathing spasms.
The agency is also requiring several follow-up studies looking at the drug's long-term safety, including its impact on the heart and lungs.
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