Washington.– Exubera, if it comes onto the market, could mean no more injections during the day for millions of diabetes patients.

Exubera, rather than being injected, is inhaled - the patient gets his/her insulin dose by inhaling. Type 1 or 2 diabetics could benefit from this new mode of administering their insulin.  

The patient wil still have to give a long-acting insulin by injection at bedtime - the inhaled insulin is taken with each meal. 

The US advisory panel says it supports the approval of Exubera, produced by Pfizer, Inc, the world's largest pharmaceutical company. The panel voted 7-2 in favor of the new drug. The FDA tends to go along with what the panel advises.  

Many experts say that inhaling insulin will help make sure that patients are more likely to take their insulin regularly. Many people do not like taking injections several times a day - consequently, many miss some of their doses.  

18 million people in the USA take insulin regularly. For them, this new drug would be a Godsend.