Some data actually indicate Lantus' market share has gone up since the Diabetologia papers were published.
Now the company is emerging from the patent cliff with the long-acting-insulin, Lantus, leading the way.
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Study results suggest that Lantus reduces the number of hypoglycaemic attacks by 20% compared with conventional insulin.
"If I were a betting man, I'd say I do not believe that Lantus causes cancer, " Buse says.
If patients on Lantus did have an increased risk, the solution might be to screen them more vigilantly.
Lantus, from Sanofi-Aventis (nyse: SNY - news - people ), is currently the top-selling insulin product.
For Type 1 diabetics, the once-a-day Lantus or another long-acting insulin, Levemir from Novo Nordisk, can provide important benefits, Buse says.
That left Aventis as a pure-play drugmaker whose products include Allegra, a blockbuster antihistamine, and Lantus, a long-acting form of insulin.
There is no strong evidence that insulin drug Lantus causes cancer, according to an expert panel convened by Sanofi-Aventis, the drug's maker.
Lantus is insulin that has been chemically altered to make it longer-acting, and a few animal studies had raised alarms about cancer risk.
Take, for instance, Aventis ' (nyse: AVE - news - people ) Lantus, a form of insulin that lasts all day.
Humira, Enbrel, Rituxan, Herceptin and Lantus being the chief candidates.
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Aventis' Lantus, the first real, once-a-day, long-acting version of the hormone, will in all likelihood be the first choice of many doctors for treating patients, because it avoids the multiple injections and unsteady response involved in earlier versions of the drug.
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