Chapter 14 - New advances in insulin products

Abstract

Insulin therapy is essential to control blood sugar levels for type-1 as well as type-2 diabetic patients. However, conventional therapy has not been found sufficient in the therapy of diabetes with some serious complications. In this context, significant improvement has been carried out to overwhelm associated barriers for extensive execution. Besides, technological developments have shown promising effects in the therapy of type-1 diabetes. Furthermore, nanoparticles have shown substantial improvements in the oral delivery of insulin. These newly designed oral insulin formulations could produce significant results, especially in the insulin-dependent patients owing to their simple application method, escaping of pain generally caused due to parenteral delivery as well as keeping up of an optimal therapeutic concentration of glucose for an extended period. The delivery of insulin through the intranasal route has also shown great aptitude since it mostly escapes not only circulation but also greatly decreases these hitches. Therefore the intranasal route has now been frequently investigated in proof-of-concept studies in both humans and animals. Eventually, several devices (i.e., pump as well as monitor to record algorithm-based automation of the insulin delivery) such as continuous glucose monitors, insulin pumps, and several other systems have been engineered to measure blood glucose levels in type-1 diabetic patients. This chapter covers recent advances in the insulin products.