The other disease plaguing Asia

Change needed
At the same time that Dr. Reddy's is promoting Plermin in India, China's Guangdong Pharmaceutical Import Export has teamed up with AcryMed, a small company from Portland, Ore., to market an anti-wound cream designed to treat diabetes-related foot ulcers and other ailments. In October, Guangdong Pharma organized a tour for a handful of American doctors to meet with 900 MDs in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou to demonstrate how to use its product, SilvaSorb.

According to Bruce Gibbins, AcryMed's chairman and chief technology officer, the Chinese need to change the way they treat diabetes patients. "When they find patients who have problems with their feet, the institutionalize them for six to eight weeks, give them antibiotics, and keep them off their feet," he says. "But they're finding they just don't have enough beds to take care of them, so they need to find another form of treatment."

With the likelihood that China's diabetic population will grow as more and more people enter the middle class and work at office jobs while chowing down fast food, that approach won't work much longer. "It's going to be a sheer numbers game," Gibbins says. And unless something changes, he adds, "the numbers are going to overwhelm them."

New guidelines
That's why some experts in both India and China are calling for governments to not just treat diabetes once people have the disease but to help prevent it by encouraging people to adopt healthier diets. For instance, last week the United News India wire service reported that Mrudula Phadke, the vice-chancellor of the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences, spoke about the need for a greater focus on prevention. She made the call while speaking at a conference organized by the Diabetic Association of India.

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On Nov. 24, China's official Xinhua news agency reported that Beijing is planning to issue new public nutrition guidelines. The following day, China Daily reported that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention has teamed up with Beijing's Sino-Japanese Friendship Hospital to study the way changes in diet and exercise routines can help prevent diabetes. But the same article also mentioned that the number of diabetes patients in China has tripled in the past three years.

Sadly, it looks like companies that produce treatments for diabetes are likely to have a growth business in Asia for many years to come.

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