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Novo Nordisk Aims at Developing Insulin Tablets

Nupur Jha
First Posted: Oct 08, 2013 11:34 AM EDT

Novo Nordisk, a Danish pharmaceutical company, is developing insulin pills.

The company intends to invest about $3.65 billion in the project, it revealed, Monday. Novo Nordisk said that the global market for diabetes pills might be about $18 billion by the year 2020, according to a report by Reuters.

These pills will replace the insulin injection that people suffering from type-1 diabetes need to take.

Around 500 people from the company have been involved in this project. The insulin tablet will enter the bloodstream through the gastric acids. They are developing insulin tablets along with  GLP-1 agonist, which refers to the drugs for patients diagnosed with type-2 diabetes.

These pills will be a savior for people who have been on injections for a long time, which can get painful over time.

Presently, 25.8 million people in the United States are diagnosed with diabetes and 79 million people are prediabetics, which means they belong to the gray area between having diabetes and having normal blood sugar..    

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