This week, on May 13th, we had the first online seminar as part of a new series of scientific online seminars that Profil Germany is kicking off. A scientific online seminar series on topics relevant to clinical diabetes researchers and those in pre-clinical development with plans to move into clinics soon will be a valuable contribution to the field. We will discuss various topics over the next months always with a focus on clinical trials in diabetes drug or technology development.
Here is the schedule for the first online seminars:
| Date | Topic | Presenter |
| May 13th | Alternative Routes of Insulin Administration | Dr. Eric Zijlstra |
| July 14th | Diabetes: Novel Pathways - Future Treatments | Prof. Dr. Thomas Forst |
| September | Automated Glucose Clamps | Dr. Tim Heise |
| November | Development of Biosimilar Insulins | Dr. Susanne Famulla |
In the first session, Dr. Eric Zijlstra introduced the audience to the various developments of the past years in the area of alternative routes of insulin administration. He discussed intradermal, inhalable, and oral insulins. Of course he touched also on the topics of the recently launched Afrezza by MannKind, as well as earlier development attempts such as Exhubera by Pfizer. Afrezza is currently generating a big stir in the community. It will be exciting to follow this new technology and to see if it can satisfy the high expectations people are putting into it.
The online seminar was well perceived by the numerous audience and a very interesting Q&A session followed the presentation. The on-demand version of the online seminar can already be watched on the Profil website. To watch the recording, just click here.
For the second online seminar in the series we will shift gears a bit and look in more detail into molecular pathways of diabetes pathology. A lot of novel pathways have been discovered in recent years and a number of them have the potential to form the basis for new generations of diabetes medications. These pathways are often patient specific and may require a personalized diabetes treatment approach.
In this online seminar in July, Professor Dr. Thomas Forst will give a review of these novel pathways and discuss what to consider in the preclinical stage of drug development to increase the chances of successful clinical development. He will also touch upon how to move from the pre-clinical stage to clinical stage for innovative diabetes treatments.
If this online seminar sounds interesting to you, then you can already sign up for it here.