FDA Approves Apidira SoloStar Disposable Pen!

I just read in Diabetes in Control that the FDA has finally approved the disposable Apidra pen.

I've been using Apidra for almost six months and for me it is by far the most phyiological fast acting insulin. Injected at the time I eat, it peaks exactly when my food peaks, and it's gone in about 2 hours. If I eat something that digests slowly, I may split my dose and do another small booster shot at 2 hours.

Until now, Apidra was only available in vials or cartridges that you use with the huge somewhat clumsy OptiClick pen. I like that the Opticlick displays the dose you've injected for a few minutes. But I don't like that if anything goes wrong with the pen you have to get a new one, in my case, from a doctor as the pharmacies don't stock them here, which could leave you high and dry if it broke during a weekend.

This availability in the new disposable pen makes Apidra more competitive with Novolog, too. The pen is the same one used for Lantus--though I never understood why you would need to dispense once a day insulin via pen. Especially since most people using Lantus use large enough doses that they'd go through a pen in a few days.

Unfortunately, the insurers in my region don't cover pens unless you are blind, and my own insurer doesn't cover Apidra at all. But when a new product like this is released, doctors get a lot of free samples, so if nothing else, more people may be trying Apidra and perhaps the drug reps will turn their intensive marketing efforts to getting the insurance company to cover Apidra along with Novolog and Humalog. It doesn't cost any more than they do.