Mixtard 30 Update

Mixtard 30 Update

Yes, it is almost a year since Novo Nordisk discontinued human Mixtard 30 for commercial reasons. This resulted in 90,000 people having to change from the insulin that suited them. From the calls we receive, there are still people who have not been able to manage their diabetes as well since this change. Most frustrating of all is that Novo Nordisk’s Actraphane, a pre-mix human insulin, is licensed and available in some European countries but it can’t be accessed in the UK because the rules only allow personal importation from countries outside the EU!

We continued to argue our case in the UK but basically received no help or support so we moved to Members of the European Parliament who certainly understood our concerns. Lady Sarah Ludford MEP and Dr Simon Busuttil MEP [Maltese delegation] followed up our concerns.

Dr Busuttil’s correspondence made the following points:

• I have had multiple meetings with Novo Nordisk and on each occasion I have taken the opportunity to bring up your case. Unfortunately to date I have not received a reply that would adequately address the problems you have raised and received no indications from industry that a solution is in sight.
• Novo Nordisk has confirmed that Actraphane is identical to Mixtard 30.
• I would recommend that you take up the matter with the UK Health authorities, as the only solution as I see it would be to revise the UK’s system on personal importation of such medical products.

IDDT’s Trustees believe that we should follow Dr Busuttil’s recommendation and take up the personal importation issues with the UK authorities. This we will be doing in 2012. We realise that we have no way of changing minds on Actraphane but no doubt Novo Nordisk will discontinue other insulins and we need to try to prevent a similar situation arising in the future.