What is "albiglutide"

n. A glucagon-like peptide-1 agonist drug under investigation for treatment of diabetes.

Albiglutide (tradenames Eperzan and Tanzeum) is a glucagon-like peptide-1 agonist (GLP-1 agonist) drug marketed by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) for treatment of type 2 diabetes. It is a dipeptidyl peptidase-4-resistant glucagon-like peptide-1 dimer fused to human albumin. The drug was invented by Human Genome Sciences and was developed in collaboration with GSK.

Albiglutide has a half-life of four to seven days, which is considerably longer than the other two GLP-1 analogs approved for market use, exenatide (Byetta) and liraglutide (Victoza). GLP-1 drugs are currently only available for subcutaneous administration on a daily basis, so a GLP-1 drug with a longer half-life is desirable. Such a drug would only need to be injected biweekly or weekly instead of daily, reducing the discomfort and inconvenience of GLP-1 administration considerably. (NOTE that this information is out of date: exenatide is available as a weekly injection under the trade name Bydureon, which received FDA approval in January, 2012.)

It has not yet been determined whether albiglutide is as effective an antidiabetic agent as GLP-1 drugs currently on the market, and final data remains to be published regarding the incidence of adverse effects related to the drug. To evaluate the efficacy and safety of the drug, albiglutide is undergoing eight Phase III clinical trials. Four of these trials should report useful data by end 2010.6 GSK filed for FDA approval on 01/14/2013 and European Medical Agency (EMA) on 03/07/2013. On 08/02/2013 GSK released a press release pushing the marketing date 3 months to 04/15/2014.

In March 2014, GlaxoSmithKline PLC received approval from the European Commission to market albiglutide under the name 'Eperzan'.

In April 2014, the FDA approved albiglutide under the name Tanzeum.