Comparative Effectiveness of Long-Acting GLP-1 Receptor Agonists in Type 2 Diabetes: A Short Review on the Emerging Data

Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists have been available as glucose-lowering therapies for people with type 2 diabetes since 2006, when twice-daily exenatide was licenced. Since then, advances in peptide chemistry and delivery have allowed for once-daily and more recently once-weekly (QW) delivery of peptides in this class and there are currently three QW “long-acting” GLP-1 receptor agonists available in clinical practice. This short review describes the therapeutic landscape that is occupied by the modern type 2 diabetes glucose-lowering therapies with a particular focus on long-acting GLP-1 receptor agonists. The efficacy and side-effect profiles of the available QW GLP-1 receptor agonists are discussed, focusing on head-to-head clinical trial comparisons. There is also an appraisal of the cardiovascular outcome trials, for which there has been an assessment of each of the QW GLP-1 receptor agonists, leading to clinical conclusions regarding their comparative effectiveness.