FDA Approves Safer Drug for Type 2 Diabetes

Diabetics won another treatment Friday that promises to fight their disease with less risk than a popular but sometimes dangerous drug.

Actos, known chemically as pioglitazone, won Food and Drug Administration approval to treat Type 2 diabetes by resensitizing patients’ bodies to insulin.

It becomes diabetics’ second alternative to the competing diabetes drug Rezulin, which generated huge excitement when it hit the market in 1997 because it worked differently from any previous diabetes treatment. But Rezulin also can cause fatal liver damage, prompting recent government restrictions on the number of diabetics who try it.

In May, the FDA approved the first drug that worked like Rezulin but with allegedly lower liver risks, SmithKline Beecham’s Avandia.

Actos, made by Takeda Pharmaceuticals and marketed by Eli Lilly & Co., will be available by prescription next month. No price was announced.