[lgp171188]

I am tempted to believe that the pharma companies are more interested in keeping their recurring revenues from diabetics than find a one time cure.

Here in India, the medicines and tools for a diabetic (particulary IDDM) is still prohibitively expensive for most people who have it. The prices of insulins and testing strips have increased by 10% or so many times in the past couple of years. Things like CGMS, insulin pumps are not affordable even to well-off people like me.

There has always been news of research from various government and government aided organizations towards the development of low cost testing strips (at about Rs. 5 per strip compared to Rs. 17 and above for the existing products) but nothing has come out as a product. What's worse is an unknown healthcare company has acquired the technology from ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) a year back and till now their only product is a low cost sanitary napkin. Wouldn't be surprised of the involvement of the big pharma companies in the delay.

All this said, at least India doesn't have an insurance system like in the US which has pushed up the prices repeatedly to help the insurance companies (imho an unwanted middleman in most cases) make more and more money.

I am not very optimistic about the future.