Novo Nordisk files for regulatory approval of faster-acting insulin aspart in the EU for the treatment of type 1 and 2 diabetes

The company intends to make faster-acting insulin aspart available in the prefilled delivery device FlexTouch.

Novo Nordisk expects to file the new drug application for faster-acting insulin aspart to the FDA before year-end 2015.

The filing of faster-acting insulin aspart is based on the results from the 'onset' clinical trial programme which involved around 2,100 people with type 1 and 2 diabetes. In the onset programme, people treated with faster-acting insulin aspart achieved improvements in postprandial control versus NovoRapid and an HbA1c reduction on par with NovoRapid. For people with type 1 diabetes, faster-acting insulin aspart results from the double-blinded onset 1 trial showed statistically significantly greater HbA1c reduction when dosed at mealtime or similar HbA1c reduction when dosed 20 minutes after a meal compared to NovoRapid. Across the onset trials, faster-acting insulin aspart had a safe and well tolerated profile, with the most common adverse event being hypoglycaemia, similar to the levels observed with NovoRapid.

"With the regulatory filing of faster-acting insulin aspart, we take yet another step in helping people with diabetes improve their blood glucose control around meals," said Mads Krogsgaard Thomsen, executive vice president and chief science officer of Novo Nordisk. "Onset 1 shows that faster-acting insulin aspart has the potential to offer improved postprandial glucose and either an additional reduction of HbA1c or added flexibility compared with NovoRapid."

Novo Nordisk intends to make faster-acting insulin aspart available in the prefilled delivery device FlexTouch.

Faster-acting insulin aspart is a mealtime insulin for the control of postprandial glucose excursions in type 1 and type 2 diabetes as well as in pump treatment. Faster-acting insulin aspart is insulin aspart (NovoRapid) in a new formulation in which two new excipients have been added to ensure early and fast absorption.