Oramed Pharmaceuticals Inc (ORMP)

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3 PROMISING DIABETES DRUGS FOR 2022

https://www.sickeconomics.com/2022/01/10/promising-diabetes-stocks-2022/

Diabetes is one of the most common health conditions in the United States. In fact, 34.2 million Americans (~10%) have diabetes, while 88 million (~27%) have pre-diabetes. The incidence of type 2 diabetes among youth is increasing in many countries, coinciding with increasing prevalence of obesity. While diabetes is commonly associated with obesity, it has two main types: type 1 and type 2. Type 1 diabetes is not caused by obesity but by autoimmune pancreatic beta cell destruction. Because the patient’s body is attacking its own beta cells that make insulin, it does not make much, or any, insulin. Therefore, the most common treatment for type 1 diabetes is insulin. Without insulin, the blood sugar will be very high, which can damage blood vessels. Since they can’t adequately supply blood and oxygen, it can lead to diseases in the vital organs (e.g., eye, kidney, heart). On the other hand, type 2 diabetes is due to a progressive loss of adequate beta cell insulin secretion and insulin resistance. These patients can be treated with non-insulin medications, insulin or both.

One of the main downfalls with diabetes is that patients have to inject themselves with insulin up to four times a day. Insulin injections are not fun for anyone. On top of the physical pain, having to remember the right times to do so is also burdensome, which can significantly affect patients’ quality of life. For as long as insulin has been manufactured, it has only been available as an injectable. It would be pointless to take it as a pill through the mouth because then it will get digested in the stomach instead of reaching the bloodstream where it’s needed. Or will it? Due to the unbelievable advancements over the past 100 years, maybe insulin does not have to be injected up to four times a day anymore. That is why three of the medications in the pipeline stand out. If approved, these medications will significantly improve the quality of life for diabetic patients and provide them with a less painful and more hopeful future.



1.) ORMD-0801 by Oramed (ORMP)
Remember when I said it would be pointless to take insulin by mouth since it won’t reach the bloodstream that way? Well, it turns out that there is a way around that. Due to the special coating of the pill, it can avoid being degraded by the enzymes in the stomach. The phase 2 trials showed very promising results with a significant decrease in A1c levels and fasting sugar levels. A1c is a measurement of how much of the proteins in blood has been coated with sugar over the past three months. Better yet, ORMD-0801’s impact on lowering blood sugar lasted 24 hours, which indicates that this may be dosed just once daily. Because it was also proven to be safe and well-tolerated, it has now progressed to phase 3 trials.

Oramed seeks to develop oral diabetes medications that are currently injectables. If approved, it will be hard to imagine diabetes patients having to inject themselves in a hundred years. It is worth noting that oral insulin is in phase 2 trials to be investigated for use in Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), also known as Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. There is currently no medication used to treat NASH, so this could also be a huge opportunity for profit if it were to get approved, as there are 30 million people with NASH in just the US alone.

As nice as it sounds to replace injectables with oral insulin, there is undeniably a risk that may come with the successful commercialization of it, especially when it comes to its price. Insurance companies may only cover the injectable form of insulin if it is significantly cheaper than the oral version. Or they may only cover the oral version under very special circumstances, such as if a patient has a skin disorder. In addition, because ORMD-0801 is the first of its kind, there is not as much data on safety and efficacy when compared to the over one hundred-year old injectable insulin. Therefore, prescribers may be hesitant to prescribe such a medication. The FDA approval is only the beginning to the commercialization, which is the part that really brings in revenue, so it is definitely an important factor to consider.

Oramed went through quite the roller coaster the past year, from its 52-week low at $4.24 to its 52-week high of $31.54. On January 7, 2022, its price closed out on $12.38. Would this be considered a great opportunity to buy? It may not be the best idea to put all the eggs in one basket, especially if that basket cannot produce any revenue yet as it does not have any approved medications out on the market. However, that basket also has the potential to revolutionize the treatment for one of the most common diseases in the world and a disease that is never going to go away.