Dasiglucagon Reduces Severe Hypoglycemia in Patients with Type 1 Diabetes

It was a randomized, double-blind trial of 170 adult participants with type 1 diabetes. The researchers randomly assigned the patients to receive a single subcutaneous dose of 0.6 mg dasiglucagon, placebo, or 1 mg reconstituted glucagon during controlled insulin-induced hypoglycemia. The major outcome assessed was time to plasma glucose recovery, defined as an increase of ≥20 mg/dL from baseline without rescue intravenous glucose. The researchers compared dasiglucagon versus placebo; reconstituted lyophilized glucagon was included as a reference.

Key findings of the study were:

• Upon evaluation, the researchers found that the time to recovery was 10 minutes for dasiglucagon compared with 40 minutes for placebo; the corresponding result for reconstituted glucagon was 12 minutes.
• They noted that the participants in the dasiglucagon group achieved plasma glucose recovery within 15 min in all but one participant (99%), superior to placebo (2%) and similar to glucagon (95%).
• They observed similar outcomes for the other investigated time points at 10, 20, and 30 min after dosing.
• The most frequent adverse effects reported were nausea and vomiting, as expected with glucagon treatment.

The authors concluded, "Dasiglucagon provided rapid and effective reversal of hypoglycemia in adults with type 1 diabetes, with safety and tolerability similar to those reported for reconstituted glucagon injection. The ready-to-use, aqueous formulation of dasiglucagon offers the potential to provide rapid and reliable treatment of severe hypoglycemia."

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.2337/DC20-2995