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DiaUnion statement on the occasion of World Diabetes Day:

Today is #worlddiabetesday, and we in DiaUnion plead you for a moment to direct your attention to the burden of type 1 diabetes (T1D) to the individuals and society:

  • T1D is an incurable autoimmune disease that strikes randomly and independently of personal lifestyle, most often in childhood and adolescence. It is not yet fully understood why a person gets T1D.
  • Sweden and Denmark have among the highest rates of T1D in the world. 50,000 Swedes and 34,560 Danes are living with the disease [1]. Globally, about 8.7 million people are living with T1D, a number expected to double by 2040 [2].
  • T1D requires lifelong, complicated treatment with insulin and places a heavy burden on the patient 24/7. Therefore, not even a third of Swedish and Danish patients with T1D reach the treatment target of 52-53 mmol/mol [3][4], which results in debilitating complications and over mortality.
  • The annual cost of the disease for the Swedish and Danish society, including direct medical costs and productivity loss, is more than EUR 650 million [5].

In order to prevent and cure T1D, it is crucial to identify people at risk for developing the disease at an early stage. This is done by autoantibody screening. However a global lack of screening programs constitutes a major bottleneck for early detection and the development of new therapies.

Just a week ago, DiaUnion reached a major milestone by entering into its first industry partnership. Thereby we are able to offer qualifying people at risk for T1D participation in a preventive drug clinical trial, the DiaPrecise precision medicine trial by Diamyd Medical. The partnership, hopefully, will be the first of several to bring preventive therapies to people at risk for type 1 diabetes.

References:

  1. Diabetes associations in Sweden and Denmark
  2. Type 1 Diabetes Index
  3. Dansk Diabetes Database. National årsrapport 2018/2019.
  4. Nationella Diabetesregistret Årsrapport 2021.
  5. JDRF, T1D Fund, Health Advances. White Paper. Modeling the Total Economic Value of Novel Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) Therapeutic Concepts. 2020.