Success of these drugs with our medical teams -- and with us -- will mean literally billions of dollars for the winning company. So I'm not surprised that they are already fighting it out at the ADA here.

These three drugs and others in the same class being developed by Roche, sanofi-aventis, and others are extraordinarily effective in reducing our A1C levels. But many drugs do that. The difference with the GLP-1 mimetics is that that also help us to lose weight.

Liraglutide could be even better in these respects than Byetta, but we don't really know yet, because we can't get our hands on it. Clearly, liraglutide will have a big advantage in convenience of use over Byetta in that it will take only one shot a day instead of the two that Byetta requires. The problem forNovo is that the long-acting release formulation from Amylin will probably be available almost simultaneously with the availability of liraglutide -- and the long-acting release means that we will only need one shot per week.

This fight must be a nightmare for Amylin and Novo. But the outcome -- no matter who wins in the marketplace -- will be a dream come true for millions of people with diabetes.