Drugs, Complications, and Collaborations All on EASD Agenda

MADRID — Once-weekly insulin, new incretin drugs, diabetes complications, and joint society collaborations will be among the featured topics at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) 2024 Annual Meeting.
The meeting will take place from September 9 to 13 in Madrid, Spain.
Major trial results to be presented in dedicated 60- or 90-minute sessions include the QWINT program of Eli Lilly’s investigational once-weekly basal insulin efsitora alfa, new secondary outcomes of the FLOW trial of semaglutide in patients with type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease, and COMBINE data on the formulation combining insulin icodec with semaglutide (IcoSema).
Late-breaking oral abstract sessions will include advancements in diabetes management and cardiovascular health, incretin-based therapies, protecting kidney function and preventing retinopathy, mental health and neuroprotection, islet therapies and genetic discoveries, and emerging diabetes technologies. A special 30-minute “hot press release” session will feature new data on CT-996, an oral small molecule glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonist (GLP-1 RA) in adults with obesity.
“The EASD meeting always goes from basic research to clinical application, so it’s always very, very broad…I hope attendees will walk away with a feeling of enthusiasm that they are getting new tools to help treat patients to target and to protect their organs and that it all makes a difference,” EASD President Chantal Mathieu, MD, PhD, chair of the Department of Endocrinology at the UZ Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, told Medscape Medical News.
Also speaking with Medscape Medical News about the upcoming EASD meeting, Manuela Meireles, PhD, EASD scientific officer, said, “We have a lot of results from clinical trials, including phase 3 trials, about drugs used to treat type 2 diabetes but that also have effects in weight loss…Most of the new results are related to weight loss because that’s the big competition at the moment. The molecules are very similar but with a few differences…We will have the biggest results that will be able to revolutionize clinical practice.”
Mathieu called the new data on once-weekly insulin in particular “quite exciting.” In Europe, Novo Nordisk’s once-weekly icodec has already been approved, whereas the US Food and Drug Administration has requested more information regarding hypoglycemia risk prior to granting approval.
Meanwhile, Lilly released top-line results from QWINT earlier this year.
Teaming Up to Address Overlapping Issues
Another notable feature throughout this meeting will be joint sessions with EASD and other medical societies, addressing diabetes-related complications in specific organ systems and other overlapping clinical issues. One symposium will cover a new joint guideline from EASD, the European Association for the Study of the Liver, and the European Association for the Study of Obesity (EASO) on metabolic dysfunction–associated steatotic liver disease.
A second joint session with EASO will tackle “the intertwined syndemic” of obesity and diabetes.
A joint symposium of EASD and the European Society of Cardiology will cover the impact of type 2 diabetes prevention on cardiovascular diseases. And EASD will join the American Diabetes Association and the International Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes to discuss upcoming consensus guidelines on transitioning from pediatric to adult diabetes care services.
One novel collaborative session might well draw a crowd: EASD will team up with speakers from the European Society for Sexual Medicine in a symposium titled When sex is ex (for her or for him). Three speakers will address the major etiologies of problems in this realm: The body, the mind, and the drugs. “I believe this symposium is long overdue,” Mathieu commented.
Women Take Center Stage 
Of note, four of the five prize-winning award lecturers at this year’s EASD will be women. The Camillo Golgi Lecture, titled “It’s complicated: using lessons from the past and the knowledge of the present to build a future free of diabetes complications,” will be delivered by Rodica Pop-Busui, MD, professor of internal medicine and metabolism, endocrinology & diabetes at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Lori Sussel, PhD, director of basic and translational research, Barbara Davis Center for Diabetes, University of Colorado, Aurora, Colorado, will give the 18th Albert Renold Lecture on “Regulation of islet cell lineages in health and diabetes.”
The 59th Minkowski Lecture, by Elisa De Franco, PhD, senior research fellow in molecular genetics at the University of Exeter Medical School, Exeter, England, is titled “Finding the missing pieces of the puzzle: gene discovery in neonatal diabetes to gain new insights into beta cell biology.”
The Diabetes Prize for Excellence will be given to Juleen R. Zierath, PhD, professor of clinical integrative physiology and a member of the Nobel Committee at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. Her talk is titled “Deconvoluting signals and metabolic rhythmicity of insulin- and exercise-action in type 2 diabetes.”
The lone male prize-winning lecturer, Roy Taylor, MD, professor of medicine and metabolism, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, is well-known in the diabetes world. He’ll give the 56th Claude Bernard Lecture on “The aetiology of type 2 diabetes: an experimental medicine odyssey.”
“Four of five of our prestigious prizes were given to women. I’m quite proud of that,” Mathieu said. And Meireles noted, “They have all made huge contributions in diabetes.”
Meireles pointed out that the conference program also includes several sessions on precision medicine in diabetes to “understand different groups of patients and how to individualize treatment for a given patient.”
Indeed, Mathieu noted that patient-centered care will be emphasized throughout the meeting. “The person’s voice is important. Psychology is important. Complications are important but also things like sex are important. New therapies are coming. And as clinicians, what we do matters.”
Mathieu serves or has served on the advisory panel for Novo Nordisk, Sanofi, Eli Lilly and Company, Novartis, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bayer, Roche, Medtronic, Insulet, Biomea Fusion, and Vertex. Financial compensation for these activities was received by KU Leuven. KU Leuven received research support for Mathieu from Medtronic, Novo Nordisk, Sanofi, and Precigen ActoBio. She serves or has served on the speakers bureau for Novo Nordisk, Sanofi, Eli Lilly and Company, Medtronic, and Boehringer Ingelheim. Financial compensation for these activities was received by KU Leuven. Meireles had no disclosures. 
Miriam E. Tucker is a freelance journalist based in the Washington, DC, area. She is a regular contributor to Medscape Medical News, with other work appearing in the Washington Post, NPR’s Shots blog, and Diatribe. She is on X: @MiriamETucker.
 
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