26/05/2026
🚨 Big news for the Type 1 Diabetes community in Australia! 🇦🇺
Today, Tzield (teplizumab) has been approved by the TGA for people aged 8+ with Stage 2 Type 1 Diabetes.
Why is this such a big deal? Because for the first time, we are talking about delaying progression to clinical type 1 diabetes — before someone is needing insulin therapy and living with the day-to-day burden of T1D.
On average, this treatment may provide around 2 extra years before progression to stage 3 T1D. Two years without insulin therapy, alarms, carb counting, hypos, ketones, or the emotional and financial load that can come with T1D.
As someone living with type 1 diabetes myself, and working as a Nurse Practitioner supporting people with diabetes every day, this feels genuinely exciting. It also highlights something important:
Type 1 diabetes doesn’t suddenly appear.
It often starts years earlier, silently, through autoimmune changes that can now be detected.
And here’s the part many people don’t realise: most people diagnosed with T1D have no family history. Which means early detection and broader screening conversations matter more than ever.
This feels like the beginning of a really important shift in how we think about type 1 diabetes — from reacting to diagnosis, to identifying and intervening earlier 💙
What are your thoughts on screening and early detection for T1D?
Fantastic type 1 diabetes (T1D) news in Australia this morning: Tzield has been approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) for use in people aged 8+ years who are in stage 2 T1D!
Here’s why it’s so exciting:
🧪 Tzield (teplizumab) can delay the progression of T1D from stage 2 (before people start showing T1D symptoms) to stage 3 (when symptoms of T1D begin and people start needing insulin therapy).
☺️ On average, Tzield means an extra 2 years of life without insulin. That's an extra 2 years without the physical, emotional, financial and mental burdens of T1D.
💉 This is the first new drug approved for T1D in over 100 years, since the discovery of insulin!
🩸 People can only be found in the early stages of T1D through screening. That’s why Breakthrough T1D has been funding early detection and screening initiatives in Australia for many years and is a global leader in the field.
💰 Breakthrough T1D has funded the development of teplizumab for almost 4 decades, from the early discovery research to the landmark clinical trials that proved it could delay T1D progression.
🔓 Next up, Breakthrough T1D will be advocating for the therapy to be listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), so it can become subsidised and available for all people with stage 2 T1D who want to access it.
We'll share more about Tzield and what this means in the days to come – you can also click the link in the comments to learn more about this exciting news!