The news coming out of this week's annual conference of the American Diabetes Association wasn't good. Global cases of diabetes doubled worldwide over the past 30 years, but in the U.S. it's even worse, with the disease increasing threefold to affect nearly 25 million Americans. If growth continues at this rate, we'll be looking at 550 million affected individuals worldwide by 2025.
Diabetes poses one of the greatest threats to our health-care system, and it therefore becomes an increasingly important target for drugmakers.
Unfortunately, the news on that front isn't even very good. Takeda's Actos, the No. 1 diabetes drug, and GlaxoSmithKline's
And improving a drug's safety profile is easier said than done. Bristol-Myers Squibb
For investors though, the most exciting results come from Novo Nordisk
Diabetes treatment is going to be an increasingly important space for Big Pharma, with the potential pool of customers growing such at an alarming rate. Investors would be wise to pay attention to the space or risk the chance of missing out on the next big blockbuster.