Trajenta may reduce stroke damage

pharmafile | December 4, 2012 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing Boehringer, EMA, Trajenta, diabetes, linagliptin 

Boehringer Ingelheim’s  diabetes drug Trajenta could one day be used to minimise the effects of brain damage following stroke.

Scientists in Sweden made the finding in a study of diabetic mice. The Boehringer-sponsored trial at the Karolinska Institutet saw that Trajenta (linagliptin) stimulates neuroprotection as well as lowering glucose.

People with diabetes are at a higher risk of stroke than the average population, and Trajenta or placebo was given to the animals before and after a stroke was induced in them, in an attempt to simulate treatment in humans.

While great caution is needed – the DPP-4 inhibitor has not been tested in this way on people – the trial suggests that patients with type II diabetes could therefore have a better prognosis after a stroke than with other treatments.

The researchers are excited because only a tenth of stroke patients currently have the most common acute therapy, thrombolysis, which has to be quickly administered after the onset of symptoms.

And the ifs and buts do not alter the idea that the results, presented in the scientific journal Diabetes, also mean the brand could lessen brain injury after stroke in other patient groups – an even greater boost to its financial fortunes.

Combined with diet and exercise, Trajenta lowers levels of glucose in the blood, and was approved by the EMA last year as a monotherapy in patients with type II diabetes as well as being recommended as add-on therapy to insulin.

The study was a collaboration between Sweden’s Department of Clinical Science and Education, the Stockholm South General Hospital and Boehringer.

Adam Hill

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