- A new drug, teplizumab, offers hope for delaying the need for insulin in people with type 1 diabetes by an average of three years.
- Hannah Robinson, a 36-year-old dentist, is the first adult in the UK to receive teplizumab, administered at Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust.
- The drug works by training the immune system to stop attacking insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, but it must be given at the earliest stage of the disease to be effective.
- Teplizumab is already approved in the US and is currently being reviewed for wider use on the NHS in the UK, with a few other patients receiving it on a case-by-case basis.
- Experts are working on establishing national screening programmes to identify individuals at high risk of type 1 diabetes early, aiming to make this treatment widely available and potentially prevent the need for insulin altogether.
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