Introduction
The Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act of 2002 mandated that the Eunice Kennedy
Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) carries out
critical reviews of the gaps in knowledge and unmet needs regarding safe and effective
pharmacologic treatment of infants, children, and adolescents in a broad range of
disease areas. In 2012, NICHD selected diabetes mellitus as one of the pediatric disorders
for review. Dr. William V. Tamborlane was named chair, and Dr. Linda DiMeglio, vice-chair,
of the Diabetes Working Group. Together with Dr. George Giacoia of NICHD, they assembled
a distinguished group of medical experts in childhood diabetes, including clinicians/clinical
investigators from leading academic centers and from industry and representatives
from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the European Medicines Agency (EMA),
and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK),
to carry out this review. It is very important to note that the views expressed in
this article, as well as in other reports from the Diabetes Working Group, are the
personal views of the authors and may not be understood or quoted as being made on
behalf of or reflecting the position of the FDA or EMA or any of the organizations
or pharmaceutical companies represented in our working group.
As shown in Supplementary Table 1, the large Diabetes Working Group was divided into
five committees: Type 1 Diabetes (T1D): Therapeutics, Type 2 Diabetes (T2D): Therapeutics,
T1D: Natural History and Biomarkers, T2D: Natural History and Biomarkers, and Diabetes
Pharmacology. The consensus of the T2D Therapeutics Committee was that its efforts
should address the crisis in care that clinicians face in treating this disorder in
adolescents. Despite a plethora of new drug classes and new agents within each class
that have been approved for use in adults with T2D, in 2015, metformin and insulin
remain the only drugs that are approved by the FDA and EMA for use in patients with
T2D <18 years of age. Although there are obstacles to the successful completion of
phase 3 studies of new treatment modalities in a number of childhood disorders (1),
the magnitude of the problem is particularly challenging in studying youth with T2D.
In this white paper, we describe the population of pediatric patients with T2D in
the U.S. and Europe, address the limitations of current therapy for youth with T2D,
and summarize how inclusion and exclusion criteria, study design, and investigator-related
issues have made it especially challenging to complete the investigation plans for
new drugs that have been submitted to the regulatory agencies to fulfill pediatric
study requirements. We have also developed a proposal, described here, that may better
facilitate the collection of adequate and well-controlled pediatric efficacy and safety
clinical trial data to inform clinicians regarding the pediatric use of new drugs
to treat T2D.
Part 1: The Challenges
Limited Treatment Options for Youth With T2D
Glucose-lowering treatments for which efficacy and safety have been evaluated in completed
randomized clinical trials in children and adolescents with T2D are extremely limited.
This is in stark contrast to the multiple treatment modalities that have been evaluated
for efficacy and safety and approved for use in adults with essentially the same disease.
Metformin and insulin remain the only antidiabetes treatments approved by the U.S.
and Europe for the treatment of youth with T2D. It is noteworthy that no pivotal clinical
trial of insulin has yet to be completed specifically in pediatric T2D subjects.
Metformin is quite effective in achieving near-normal hemoglobin A1c (A1C) levels
(i.e., <7.0%) in most adolescents early in the course of T2D. However, results of
the Treatment Options for type 2 Diabetes in Adolescents and Youth (TODAY) study in
youth with duration of T2D <2 years suggest that T2D has a more aggressive course
in adolescents than in adults. Despite mean baseline A1C levels of 5.9%, A1C levels
increased to >8.0% in more than 50% of subjects treated with metformin monotherapy
in the TODAY study over an average of 11 months (2). However, assessment of medication
compliance in the TODAY study was carried out with pill counts and the actual consumption
of medications was unknown. The Pediatric Diabetes Consortium (PDC) established the
first registry of youth with T2D in the U.S. in 2011. The clinical and demographic
characteristics of the first 500 patients enrolled in the registry were very similar
to other pediatric T2D cohorts, in that two-thirds were female, >90% were racial and
ethnic minorities, and most patients were from economically disadvantaged families
(3). Data from the PDC (Table 1) show that treatment with insulin alone or metformin
plus insulin usually fails to achieve target A1C levels of <7.5% that are recommended
by the International Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes (4). Difficulties
in complying with complex insulin injection regimens may contribute to the elevated
A1C levels in insulin-requiring pediatric T2D patients. These data also show that
only 3% of the PDC T2D Registry patients were receiving off-label use of the newer
antidiabetes drugs approved for use in adults with T2D.
Table 1
Enrollment data of 500 youth with T2D in the PDC T2D Clinic Registry (3)
Treatment
Median T2D duration (years)
Median A1C (25, 75 percentile)
% of total cohort
Drug naïve
1.7
6.4 (5.7, 7.6)
9
Metformin alone
2.0
6.2 (5.6, 7.3)
37
Insulin alone
2.9
8.4 (6.5, 10.0)
12
Metformin plus insulin
2.5
8.7 (6.6, 10.5)
39
Other
3.8
8.9 (6.0, 9.2)
3
Regulatory Framework
The U.S. FDA and the European EMA require pharmaceutical companies to describe, at
an early stage in drug development, how they will develop new medicinal products for
use in children (defined as age <18 years). Unless an exemption (waiver) is granted,
the companies must agree to a research plan with each agency separately and, although
the two agencies work closely together, their recommendations may occasionally differ.
Most of the pediatric research plans for each product consist of at least two separate
studies:
A pharmacokinetic (PK)/pharmacodynamic (PD) study (establishing dose and tolerability)
A confirmatory efficacy and safety phase 3 study with a controlled phase of at least
12 weeks and a subsequent safety extension up to a total of 52 weeks to establish
drug safety and efficacy
All of these studies include waivers for children <10 years of age based on the grounds
that T2D is exceedingly rare in children <10 years of age.
A review of www.clinicaltrials.gov reveals a number of phase 3 studies that have been
open for recruitment for up to 2–6 years (Table 2). In the case of saxagliptin, this
includes two separate clinical trials involving the use of this drug as initial monotherapy
versus metformin as well as add-on therapy in metformin-treatment failures versus
placebo. In the case of sitagliptin, separate trials were undertaken to study its
efficacy and safety when used in fixed-dose combinations with metformin, as well as
when used alone. The requirement to carry out more than one pivotal trial for an individual
drug has contributed to the problems in completing the trials of any new drugs in
pediatric T2D. More recent examples of pediatric investigation plans (PIPs) for drugs
in T2D proposed by industry and approved by the EMA are listed in Table 3. The proposed
dates of completion of these studies stretches out to 2027 and more PIPs are in negotiation.
Table 2
Examples of ongoing phase 3 studies in youth with T2D (as of 30 April 2015)
Drug
Trial indentifer
Subjects (N)
Status
Duration
Colesevelam
NCT01258075
200
Open
4 years, 5 months
Exenatide
NCT00658021
195
Open
6 years, 11 months
Linagliptin
NCT01342484
117
Open
4 years
Liraglutide
NCT01541215
172
Open
2 years, 5 months
Saxagliptin
NCT01434186
224
Open
3 years, 5 months
Saxagliptin
NCT01204775
136
Open
3 years, 10 months
Sitagliptin
NCT01485614
170
Open
3 years, 2 months
Sitagliptin
NCT01472367
90
Open
3 years, 4 months
Sitagliptin
NCT01760447
90
Open
2 years, 2 months
Table 3
Examples of recent PIPs for drugs in T2D approved by the EMA
Drug
Anticipated completion date
Taspoglutide
March 2017
Empagliflozin
February 2019
Exenatide
July 2019
Alogliptin
May 2020
Albiglutide
April 2021
Omarigliptin
February 2022
Dulaglutide
June 2022
Lixisenatide
October 2022
Sotagliflozin
February 2024
Ertugliflozin
March 2026
Glucagon receptor antagonist
July 2027
The reality is that most of the pivotal phase 3 studies that have been launched are
finding it very difficult to enroll enough pediatric patients, despite recruitment
of many centers in Europe, the U.S., and other countries around the world, underscoring
the need to critically assess current study eligibility requirements and trial designs.
In 2014, it was estimated that conducting all of the individual pediatric T2D studies
that companies have agreed to with the regulatory agencies will require up to 3,800
pediatric patients (5), and this number continues to increase with every new study
proposal. Having been first recognized in the 1990s, pediatric T2D is an epidemic
in relative rather than absolute terms, and the number of pediatric patients with
T2D remains small compared with the number of patients with T1D. On the basis of the
SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth (SEARCH) study data, the estimated number of T2D patients
between 10 and 18 years of age in the U.S. was ≤25,000 (6) and the prevalence is much
lower in Europe (7,8). Moreover, the wide geographical distribution of patients in
the U.S. results in relatively small numbers of patients in any single pediatric diabetes
treatment center.
As in the TODAY study (2), 85% of patients in the PDC T2D Registry were black and
Hispanic adolescents from low-income families (3). In these disadvantaged families,
socioeconomic factors (e.g., parents missing work for study visits, transportation
issues that restrict recruitment to a limited geographical area) and cultural/historical
issues (e.g., mistreatment of minority subjects in past clinical trials) are major
obstacles to recruitment. In Europe, the situation is different: the prevalence of
T2D in young people remains lower than in the U.S. and migrant families from Africa,
India, Pakistan, and the Middle East are overrepresented, thus creating additional
challenges for recruitment.
Other common reasons why potential subjects are excluded from these studies are the
presence of major medical and psychiatric conditions and treatment with glucocorticoids,
atypical antipsychotics, and other excluded medications. In addition, most eligible
subjects are teenagers who are often difficult to recruit and retain in clinical trials
and are frequently lost to follow-up with treating physicians (9).
Easing the Impact of Eligibility Restrictions
Eligibility criteria in many of the early T2D studies in pediatrics resulted in the
exclusion of a substantial proportion of the relatively small pool of patients who
might otherwise be available for participation in these studies. Until recently, most
studies only included subjects with A1C levels ≥7.0%. As observed in the TODAY study
in patients with T2D duration <2 years (10), and substantiated by the PDC T2D Registry
(Table 1), this criteria eliminates almost half of T2D patients who are well controlled
on metformin alone or on treatment with lifestyle modification. In some more recent
trials, the A1C inclusion criteria has been lowered to ≥6.5%, which increases the
available pool of patients by an additional 10%. Nevertheless, ∼35–40% of potential
pediatric subjects with T2D who have A1C levels <6.5% would still be excluded. As
the TODAY study showed that A1C levels rise rapidly in adolescents with T2D who are
well controlled on metformin monotherapy, it might be possible to reduce the lower
limit of A1C to values <6.5%.
Prior to the February 2013 EMA workshop in London, all but one of the active pivotal
trials of pediatric T2D excluded patients on current treatment with insulin (11).
As indicated in Table 1, this exclusion criteria eliminated ∼50% of pediatric patients
with T2D. Currently, eligibility criteria in most but not all studies have been revised
to allow inclusion of patients treated with insulin with or without metformin.
Obstacles to Participation in T2D Studies by Academic Pediatric Diabetes Centers in
the U.S.
Most studies of T2D in pediatrics in the U.S. are carried out at academic medical
centers, and there are a number of issues at these institutions that have made it
difficult for investigators to participate in industry-sponsored T2D studies. Major
problems include the ever-increasing time and effort required of investigators and
research staff to complete the regulatory and certification processes, the lack of
the administrative infrastructure to assist with regulatory approvals and negotiations
of trial budgets, and the lack of clinical research infrastructure and experienced
staff to carry out the studies. In T2D research in pediatrics, where local numbers
of eligible participants are small, these hurdles often become insurmountable. A potential
solution to this problem is the use of shared personnel, infrastructure, and other
resources by investigators in different disciplines.
Most academic research institutions are accustomed to the budgeting of research grants
and contracts based on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) model of committed
full-time equivalent support for prespecified effort of investigators and research
staff. Protected research time can be provided to investigators and personnel can
be hired because the funds to support them are already committed over a specified
period of time. In contrast, the predominant fee-for-service model of industry-sponsored
trials provides piecemeal funding that is almost entirely dependent on the number
of subjects who are enrolled in the studies. This method of funding poses a particular
challenge for centers to participate in the current, short-term T2D trials that will
enroll only a small number of patients.
Academic medical centers have traditionally placed limited scholarly value on their
faculty’s participation in industry-sponsored clinical trials as compared with peer-reviewed,
investigator-initiated studies funded by the NIH or foundation grants. Clinical investigators,
themselves, have had a vastly different approach to participating in NIH-sponsored
than industry-sponsored multicenter clinical trials. The NIDDK-sponsored TODAY study
provides an excellent example that is particularly relevant to this discussion (12).
In the TODAY study, 15 clinical centers enrolled >1,200 adolescents with T2D of <2
years’ duration and 699 subjects were randomized into the study. In contrast, industry-sponsored
clinical trials in pediatric T2D have enrolled hundreds of centers but the number
of subjects who have completed the studies is very small. In Europe, although the
incidence and prevalence of T2D has been well documented through robust diabetes population
registries, there is currently no clinical trials network that compares with the TODAY
study, although there are plans to establish a network through European Network of
Paediatric Research at the EMA. Thus in Europe, recruitment to T2D studies has been
through industry sponsorship and limited by the overall low numbers of eligible subjects.
Results of Pediatric Endocrine Society Survey of Diabetes Treatment Centers
Two of the authors of this white paper (R.G.-K. and K.B.) developed a survey that
was sent by the Pediatric Endocrine Society to its members to ascertain the barriers
to participation in industry-sponsored clinical trials in adolescents with T2D. The
results of the survey support the challenges that have been described above. Specifically,
the most common obstacles to participation included the following:
Clinics caring for ≤50 T2D patients under the age of 18 years
Lack of interest in participating in research by patients and families
Restrictive inclusion criteria
Exclusion of subjects due to past or current use of glucose-lowering agents other
than metformin
Inadequate reimbursement
Part 2: Innovative Approaches and Novel Study Designs
The Case for Extrapolation
Both the EMA and FDA have defined their concepts and necessary criteria to extrapolate
the efficacy of medicinal products from adults to the pediatric population (13). In
general, to permit extrapolation, the disease must be sufficiently similar in both
populations. In addition, similar responses to intervention and similar exposure-response
relationships in the adult and pediatric populations would have to be substantiated.
Although the basic pathophysiology of insulin resistance and progressive β-cell dysfunction
is similar in adolescents and adults (14,15), there appears to be a faster decline
in β-cell function in youth than in adults with T2D, a suggestion that is supported
by the higher-than-predicted failure rate of metformin monotherapy in the TODAY study
(2). In addition, due to the hormonal changes of puberty (16), obese adolescents with
T2D may be more insulin resistant than adults with T2D. The FDA and EMA have judged
that there is insufficient evidence regarding the similarities between adolescents
and adults with T2D to justify full extrapolation of efficacy from studies in adults
to adolescents.
Partial extrapolation of efficacy can be used when uncertainty exists about the assumptions
underlying full extrapolation. Partial extrapolation of efficacy can range from requiring
a single adequate and well-controlled phase 3 study (as opposed to the two separate
trials required in adults) to requiring only a PK/PD exposure-response study that
shows similarities in exposure-response relationships between adult and pediatric
patients. Safety data would also need to be collected at the recommended dose(s).
Virtually all of the recent pediatric T2D program agreements accept partial extrapolation
of efficacy from adults by allowing a single phase 3 study in the pediatric population
compared with the requirement for at least two separate studies. It remains to be
determined whether the concept of partial extrapolation can be further extended to
reduce the number of pediatric patients required in pediatric programs without compromising
the adequacy of the pediatric efficacy assessment.
Studies of Drug PK and PD in Youth With T2D
It is standard procedure for one of the first clinical studies in the pediatric development
of a drug to be a phase 1 pediatric study to assess drug PK based on the assumption
that growth and developmental changes in factors influencing absorption, distribution,
metabolism, and excretion will lead to changes in PK measures and parameters. To achieve
drug exposure values, e.g., area under the drug concentration curve and peak drug
concentration, in children similar to values associated with effectiveness and safety
in adults, it is considered necessary to evaluate the drug PK over the entire pediatric
age range in which the drug will be used. However, as almost all pediatric patients
with T2D are ≥10 years of age, some of the complexities challenging clinical pharmacology
studies in younger children are avoided.
In early studies, the PK of metformin (17), glimepiride (18), and pioglitazone (19)
in adolescents with T2D were not different than the PK of approved doses of the drugs
in adults. More recently, the doses of newer drugs such as exenatide, liraglutide,
and sitagliptin that are being used in pivotal safety and efficacy trials in pediatric
patients with T2D were also shown to be very similar to the doses approved for use
in adults (Table 4). These data suggest that the PK properties of T2D drugs in adolescent
patients are not significantly different from that in adults. Similar drug exposures
in adolescents compared with adults with T2D are likely to be related to the age,
pubertal development, and the marked obesity in this patient population. Whether increases
in glomerular filtration rate or other physiologic factors contribute to increased
rates of drug clearance in youth with T2D has not been established.
Table 4
Recently completed pediatric T2D PK studies (ClinicalTrials.gov)
Drug
Subjects (N)
Start date
End date
Pediatric dose in phase 3 trial
Adult dose
Exenatide
13
February 2006
February 2007
5 μg b.i.d. AND 10 μg b.i.d.
5 μg b.i.d. AND 10 μg b.i.d.
Liraglutide
21
November 2009
September 2011
1.8 mg or maximum tolerated dose: 0.6/1.2/1.8 mg
1.2 mg or 1.8 mg q.d.
Sitagliptin
36
July 2008
February 2011
100 mg q.d.
100 mg q.d.
Sitagliptin
24
July 2012
April 2014
Sitagliptin 100 mg q.d. AND Metformin extended release 1,000 to 2,000 mg q.d.
Sitagliptin 100 mg q.d. AND Metformin extended release 1,000 to 2,000 mg q.d.
Depending on the sample size, performance of dedicated PK studies in this difficult-to-recruit
population usually takes between 1 and 2.5 years to complete, as only about one subject
per month successfully completes the study (Table 3). Due to the difficulties with
performing a standard phase 1 study in this population, alternative approaches have
been considered. One alternative includes the adoption of modeling and simulation
to predict the pediatric exposure and dose with confirmation of exposure of the predicted
dose obtained through sparse sampling for PK parameters embedded within the pivotal
pediatric study to assess safety and efficacy. This approach is now being accepted
by the FDA; it eliminates the need for a dedicated phase 1 pediatric study to assess
PK, with significant savings to both time and cost.
New Study Designs of Pivotal Randomized Clinical Trials
Leaders at the EMA and FDA have recognized that innovative approaches to the design
of regulatory studies that address feasibility and recruitment issues in pediatric
T2D are needed (5). An innovative approach presented by James Wason, MRC Biostatistics
Unit Hub for Trials Methodology Research, Cambridge, U.K., at the EMA Workshop in
2013 would use simultaneous multi-agent/multicompany pivotal trials carried out by
independent networks of leading academic pediatric diabetes treatment centers in the
U.S., Europe, Australia, and elsewhere (11).
Multi-agent clinical trials could be restricted to products from the same pharmaceutical
company or involve multiple companies; similarly, they could include products within
the same class or in different classes. For regulatory purposes, the study design
would only test each new treatment against the control treatment, so that the safety
and efficacy of each individual drug can be established. There would be no regulatory
requirement to test the potential superiority (or noninferiority) of one new treatment
against another new treatment.
The use of multiple experimental treatment groups versus a single, shared control
group will substantially lower the total number of subjects needed to complete these
studies compared with current studies that use a separate control for each experimental
group. For example, a four-arm trial would reduce the number of subjects that would
be required for separate trials by 33% because the number of control subjects would
be cut by 67%.
Multi-agent rather than the current single-agent approach could be used in a number
of different study designs that would make as many subjects as possible eligible for
inclusion.
Subjects Who Are Poorly Controlled (A1C >7.0% or 6.5%) on Treatment With Metformin
and Insulin Alone or in Combination
These would be trials of the safety and efficacy of add-on therapy with experimental
agents versus placebo. The primary efficacy outcome would be superiority in lowering
of A1C versus placebo after a specified period of time.
Subjects Who Are Well Controlled (A1C <7.0 or 6.5%) on Treatment With Metformin Alone
Trials of Experimental Agents as Monotherapy of T2D.
In these studies, subjects who are well controlled on metformin alone would be randomized
to either remaining on metformin or switching to one of the experimental agents. The
primary efficacy outcome would be noninferiority in the difference in A1C levels versus
the metformin group after 12 months.
Trials of Early Combination Therapy in Adolescents With T2D.
As shown in Fig. 1, in these clinical trials, subjects who are well controlled on
metformin alone would be randomized to either metformin plus placebo or combination
therapy of metformin plus an experimental agent. The concept of studying early combination
therapy in patients with T2D who are well controlled on metformin alone rather than
waiting for the failure of metformin monotherapy has already been established in youth
in the TODAY study and in adults in the Glycemia Reduction Approaches in Diabetes:
A Comparative Effectiveness Study (GRADE) study (20). As in the TODAY study, long-term
efficacy, as defined as time to treatment failure, would require longer follow-up
periods (e.g., up to 3–4 years) to complete.
Figure 1
Example of a multi-agent study design of early combination therapies of pediatric
T2D modeled after the TODAY study. DPP-4, dipeptidyl peptidase 4; GLP-1, glucagon-like
peptide 1; SGLT2, sodium–glucose cotransporter 2.
From a patient perspective, multi-agent trials increase the likelihood of getting
randomized to an active treatment arm rather than a control arm as compared with a
single-agent trial. An advantage for pharmaceutical companies could be to benefit
from each other’s know-how in terms of recruitment strategy and trial expertise. Companies
would no longer have to compete against each other to recruit the few available patients
and make their individual study workable but would collaborate for one joint study.
It is important to note that, in Europe and the U.S., the extension of patent protection
depends only on the successful completion of the agreed development plan rather than
whether or not the plan leads to a pediatric indication.
Of course, multi-agent clinical trials involving multiple companies also present significant
challenges, which would need to be overcome. Which agents would be included and how
would the study costs be divided? Although a three-arm study involving almost 700
pediatric T2D patients was successfully completed by the TODAY Study Group, it remains
to be determined whether such a large multi-arm, industry-sponsored study would be
as successful.
Expanding the Pool of Eligible Subjects
Additional steps can be taken to increase the pool of subjects who are eligible for
these studies. There is a strong rationale for including subjects up to 21 or even
25 years of age who had the onset of their disease prior to 18 years of age, as it
has been extremely rare for such patients to be included in adult T2D pivotal trials.
Moreover, as a result of the February 2013 EMA workshop on PIPs in T2D, the EMA has
indicated that “young adults behave more like adolescents than adults” (11). It is
also noteworthy that 21 years of age is considered the upper limit of age for pediatric
studies of medical devices.
New Organizational Structures
New organizational structures are needed for the development and implementation of
clinical trials for approval of new drugs for youth with T2D to replace the current
system of companies competing against one another and even against themselves when
they have more than one agent to study. This approach will involve close cooperation
of all stakeholders, including pharmaceutical companies, investigators at pediatric
diabetes research centers, and regulatory agencies. In the U.S., the NIH could also
play a role as a facilitator.
Pharmaceutical industry partners could provide the financial support to develop a
network of investigators and centers with recognized expertise in performing clinical
studies in pediatric T2D in the U.S., the European Union, Australia, and elsewhere,
as well as covering the costs of performing the studies. Within the European Network
of Pediatric Research, a Diabetes and Endocrinology network is currently being established
and the PDC in the U.S. has recently received additional support to increase the number
of its centers to more than 35. Similar to some of the NIH-supported clinical trial
groups, such as the Diabetes Research in Children Network (DirecNet), these consortia
could use a hybrid approach to funding: a relatively modest amount of committed support
might be provided at each site to help build the research team and this support will
be supplemented by the number of subjects who are enrolled in active treatment trials.
The longer study periods of the new study designs and the steady stream of new therapeutic
agents that require investigation for the foreseeable future will ensure the financial
stability of the centers.
Many of the regulatory and financial hurdles can be reduced by a more coordinated
approach using an independent central coordinating center. The coordinating center
will have the responsibility for the preparation of regulatory documents, share the
collective network experience in responding to regulatory concerns, monitor the institutional
review board approval, certify the sites and investigators, implement the standard
research agreements across the network, and assist in the development of study budgets.
Ideally, the clinical center principal investigators and the coordinating center(s)
for each study will share the responsibility for the development of study protocols
in conjunction with input from the pharmaceutical industry, the FDA, and the EMA.
As much as possible, guidelines from both of these agencies regarding the essential
study elements would take into consideration the expert recommendations of study investigators
and be harmonized between the two agencies. A steering committee composed of all the
stakeholders will establish subcommittees that will be responsible for the monitoring
the recruitment of subjects, implementation of study protocols, proposals for ancillary
studies, preparation of publications and presentations, and evaluations of the performance
of individual centers.
As each subject completes the randomized phase of each of these trials, they will
be invited to continue to be followed in a T2D registry and clinic network made up
of all of the clinical centers that participated in the study for the collection of
additional postapproval safety and efficacy data.
Pipe Dream or Future Reality?
The authors of this white paper remain committed to the idea that appropriate studies
should be done to provide the evidence needed to secure an indication for the use
of these drugs in youth with T2D where appropriate rather than to advocate for off-label
use of these agents in pediatrics. We have outlined a number of approaches to aid
and improve the collection of pediatric T2D safety and efficacy data that could help
to facilitate the approval of new, safe, and effective glucose-lowering agents for
youth with T2D. We all believe that these ideas and other novel approaches can provide
a real solution to the problems we currently face in providing the best possible care
to youth with this difficult condition.
Supplementary Material
Supplementary Data