What is diabetes?
Diabetes is a chronic condition that affects how your body turns food into energy. When you eat, your body breaks food down into sugar and releases it into your bloodstream - where it travels to cells to be used for energy.
What is insulin?
Insulin is a hormone made by the pancreas that helps unlock cells and lets sugar in to provide energy. Diabetes occurs when your body does not make enough insulin, makes no insulin at all, or doesn't respond to it properly. As a result, sugar stays in the bloodstream, which over time can lead to serveral serious health issues.
We are committed to driving change to improve treatment options for people living with diabetes. We believe insulin treatment should be simple. Our teams strive to ease the burden of living with a chronic condition through meeting the diverse needs of patients.
About 38 million American adults are currently living with diabetes,
and most of them have type 2 diabetes.1 Type 2 diabetes
happens when the body does not make enough insulin naturally or
respond to insulin the way it should. 3
Anyone can have Type 2 diabetes. Some factors that put people at
greater risk, include: obesity, age, sedentary lifestyle, family
history of the condition, or being a member of a high-risk ethnic
group, which includes Black Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanics,
and Native Americans.4
Type 2 diabetes is interconnected to a variety of other chronic
conditions, including obesity5 and cardiovascular diseases.6
With Type 2 diabetes, you have up to a 4x greater risk
of stroke, heart attack, or cardiovascular death.2 That is
why living an active lifestyle and eating healthy may help with
prevention. It is possible to live a full and active lifestyle with
this condition as long as it is properly managed under the supervision
of a diabetes care team.7
Less common than Type 2 diabetes, only about 5%-10% of those living
with diabetes in the United States have Type 1. Type 1 diabetes is
defined as when your pancreas does not make or makes very little
insulin. It is thought to be caused by an autoimmune reaction that
destroys the cells in the pancreas that make insulin, called beta
cells. This process can go on for months or years before any symptoms
appear.6
Type 1 diabetes usually occurs in
children, teens, and young adults, but it can also happen at any
age. People with Type 1 diabetes must take insulin every day.6
Within Type 1 diabetes, we are currently conducting research in the following areas:
- Glucose-responsive insulins
- Connected insulin delivery devices
- Curative stem cell treatment
- Digital health solutions
When we combine a patient's perspective with our
scientific expertise, we continue to discover and develop insulins
and delivery systems that will help shape the future of diabetes
care.
Learn
about our ambitious R&D pipeline.
1. CDC. National Diabetes Statistics Report. Diabetes. May 15, 2024. Accessed June 7, 2024. https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/php/data-research/index.html
2. Association AD. American Diabetes Association Complete Guide to Diabetes: The Ultimate Home Reference from the Diabetes Experts. 5th ed. American Diabetes Association; 2011. https://www.google.com/books/edition/American_Diabetes_Association_Complete_G/B1DDBwAAQBAJ?gbpv=1
3. CDC. Diabetes Basics. Diabetes. July 19, 2024. Accessed November 12, 2024. https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/about/index.html
4. CDC. Diabetes Risk Factors. Diabetes. June 4, 2024. Accessed November 12, 2024. https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/risk-factors/index.html
5. Teck J. Diabetes-Associated Comorbidities. Primary Care: Clinics in Office Practice. 2022;49(2):275-286. doi:10.1016/j.pop.2021.11.004
6. Martín-Timón I, Sevillano-Collantes C, Segura-Galindo A, Del Cañizo-Gómez FJ. Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease: Have all risk factors the same strength? World J Diabetes. 2014;5(4):444-470. doi:10.4239/wjd.v5.i4.444
7. American Heart Association. Preventing and Treating Diabetes. www.heart.org. 2024. Accessed November 12, 2024. https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/diabetes/prevention--treatment-of-diabetes
8. Statistics about diabetes. American Diabetes Association. November 2, 2023. Accessed June 7, 2024. https://diabetes.org/about-diabetes/statistics/about-diabetes
9. CDC. About type 1 diabetes. Diabetes. May 15, 2024. Accessed June 7, 2024. https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/about/about-type-1-diabetes.html