BRIEF—Guidelines recommend first-line use of SGLT2 inhibitors in type 2 diabetes with CV disease

The 2019 European Society of Cardiology (ESC) guidelines on diabetes, pre-diabetes and cardiovascular (VC) diseases have been presented at the ESC Congress in Paris.

These guidelines, which were developed in collaboration with the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, recommend sodium-glucose co-transporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitors as a first-line treatment option for the management of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients, either drug naïve or on metformin, with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease or high cardiovascular (CV) risk.

The guidelines also recommended SGLT2 inhibitors as a first-line treatment for T2DM patients who are at high risk of heart failure and for the prevention and management of chronic kidney disease in patients who are at a high associated risk of CV disease.

As the European distributor of Invokana (canagliflozin) and Vokanamet (canagliflozin and metformin), UK-based drugmaker Mundipharma stands to benefit from the guidelines, which have been published in the European Heart Journal.