Type 2 Diabetes:Non-Insulin Drugs

Health Journey

Type 2 Diabetes

  1. Start Here
  2. Risks, Symptoms, and Tests
  3. After Your Diagnosis
  4. Doctors and Other Health-Care Support
  5. Monitoring Your Blood Sugar
  6. Eating Healthy
  7. Weight Loss and Exercise
  8. Living With Diabetes
  9. Non-Insulin Drugs
  10. If You Need Insulin
  11. Complications of Diabetes

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Video

"I Have a Case of Pancreatitis"

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I really love Byetta, if you can love a medicine (1:30)
Nancy, 54, was taking Byetta when she developed pancreatitis. She went off the drug but would like to try it again.

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Byetta (exenatide) was approved in the U.S. in 2005 for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. It’s a new type of drug that's delivered by injector pen and can cause weight loss in some people. In 2007, the Food and Drug Administration reported that the drug was possibly linked to 30 cases of pancreatitis, a potentially life-threatening inflammation of the pancreas. Nancy starting taking Byetta and was happy with the drug because it lowered her blood sugar and she lost weight; then she developed pancreatitis. Her doctor isn’t sure that the drug caused her pancreatitis but took her off it. Nancy hopes to be able to take it again in the future, possibly at a lower dose.