PARIS An injected insulin made by French drug maker Sanofi-Aventis provided further reduction of blood sugar in patients with Type 2 diabetes when added to oral diabetes drugs, according to a study presented at a medical conference in Sweden.

Sanofi announced Monday results of two studies presented at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes’ 46th annual meeting in Stockholm showing that adding Lantus (insulin glargine [rDNA]) to oral antidiabetic therapies, such as metformin, in Type 2 diabetes patients with uncontrolled blood sugar reduced A1C levels further than the antidiabetic therapies alone and also produced lower risk of abnormally low blood sugar, known as hypoglycemia.

“Patients with Type 2 diabetes who used Lantus as monotherapy or added it to one baseline oral antidiabetic agent demonstrated a greater reduction in A1C with lower risk of hypoglycemia than those taking two OADs, with a most significant reduction when Lantus was added to metformin alone versus other OADs,” University of Vermont College of Medicine researcher and lead investigator in one of the studies Jack Leahy said. The “other OADs” to which Leahy referred were sulfonylurea and sulfonylurea combined with metformin.