Every six seconds someone dies from diabetes.  In 2015, diabetes claimed the lives of 5 million people worldwide. As the number of people with diabetes grows, so will this death toll, unless we change the way we look at this disease.

This year’s World Diabetes Day is all about encouraging testing to achieve early diagnosis and treatment of diabetes and its often life-threatening complications that include blindness, cardiovascular disease, kidney failure and lower leg amputations. Diabetes complications can be prevented or delayed by maintaining blood glucose, body weight, blood pressure and cholesterol levels as close to normal as possible. Another perspective is disease interception, addressing the root causes, intervening earlier, and seeking solutions to inhibit progression or even to reverse the disease.

At Janssen, we see a world of possibilities to not only address blood glucose, but to take on diabetes’ deadliest complications. Three years ago we introduced a sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitor, the newest class of diabetes medicines that's proven to significantly lower blood glucose in adults with type 2 diabetes. This new treatment is already making a transformational difference in many people’s lives.

Across the Johnson & Johnson enterprise, companies share in the fight of this huge global burden. What joins us together is a consistent commitment to improving patient experience across the continuum of care via new innovations in prevention, interception and intervention. The Johnson & Johnson Diabetes Care Companies (JJDCC) will be launching a new on-demand insulin delivery system that creates a new wearable, discreet, injection-free insulin delivery category meant to increase the likelihood of mealtime dosing and better control blood glucose. JJDCC and Johnson & Johnson Diabetes Institute are improving diabetes-related patient care and professional education around the globe with recent new public private partnerships in Middle East & Africa, Russia and in the United States along with Johnson & Johnson Vision Care. Meanwhile, by investing in and leveraging a growing body of clinical research and evidence, Ethicon is advancing a global conversation on bariatric surgery as a potentially health-improving procedure for patients suffering from obesity and obesity-related health conditions, notably type 2 diabetes. The Ethicon sponsored STAMPEDE clinical trial is the largest randomized controlled trial of surgery for diabetes.

At Janssen, we continue to challenge the way we think about diabetes and its often serious consequences. On World Diabetes Day, as we reflect on our progress in diabetes management thus far, we look ahead to developing new transformational solutions to prevent, intercept, change the way we treat, and strive to eliminate the disease altogether.

James List, M.D., Ph.D.
Global Therapeutic Area Head,
Cardiovascular & Metabolism