Overview

• 36-year-old dentist Hannah Robinson from Devon is the first adult in the UK to receive teplizumab under a special NHS programme aimed at delaying insulin dependence.
• Teplizumab, already approved in the United States, retrains the immune system to protect pancreatic beta cells and has demonstrated an average three-year delay in insulin initiation.
• A small cohort of early-stage type 1 diabetes patients is receiving the drug on a case-by-case basis while UK regulators evaluate a formal licence for wider NHS use.
• Experts at Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Exeter are rolling out genetic and autoantibody screening to detect high-risk individuals before clinical diagnosis.
• Diabetes UK is pushing for regulatory approval, national screening programmes and NHS system upgrades to scale up immunotherapy delivery and prolong insulin-free periods.