Long‐term safety and efficacy of a novel once‐weekly oral trelagliptin as monotherapy or in combination with an existing oral antidiabetic drug in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: A 52‐week open‐label, phase 3 study

AIMS/INTRODUCTION Trelagliptin is a novel once-weekly oral dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitor for type 2 diabetes mellitus that was first approved in Japan. We evaluated long-term safety and efficacy of trelagliptin in Japanese patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. MATERIALS AND METHODS This was a phase 3, multicenter, open-label study to evaluate long-term safety and efficacy of trelagliptin. Patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus inadequately controlled despite diet/exercise or treatment with one of the existing oral antidiabetic drugs along with diet/exercise received trelagliptin 100 mg orally once weekly for 52 weeks as monotherapy or combination therapies. The primary end-points were the safety variables, and the secondary end-points were glycosylated hemoglobin and fasting plasma glucose. RESULTS A total of 680 patients received the following antidiabetic therapies: trelagliptin monotherapy (n = 248), combination with a sulfonylurea (n = 158), a glinide (n = 67), an α-glucosidase inhibitor (n = 65), a biguanide (n = 70), or a thiazolidinedione (n = 72). During the study, 79.8% of the patients experienced at least one adverse event for monotherapy, 87.3% for combination with a sulfonylurea, 77.6% for a glinide, 81.5% for an α-glucosidase inhibitor, 64.3% for a biguanide, and 84.7% for a thiazolidinedione, respectively. Most of the adverse events were mild or moderate. The change in glycosylated hemoglobin from baseline at the end of the treatment period was -0.74 to -0.25% for each therapy. CONCLUSIONS Once-weekly oral trelagliptin provides well-tolerated long-term safety and efficacy in both monotherapy and combination therapies in Japanese patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus.