Levemir
An injectable long-acting basal insulin analogue used to manage blood sugar in patients with diabetes.
Where Insulin Detemir is approved
All regulators →Of the three regulators tracked here, the first to approve Insulin Detemir was the EU, on 1 Jun 2004. It is approved in 3 of the 3 regulators tracked here.
From the regulators' own registers: FDA Drugs@FDA, the EMA medicines list and Health Canada's Notice of Compliance database. Dates are the first listed approval of a product containing only this substance; combination products and nationally authorised EU medicines are not counted.
What health systems spend on Insulin Detemir
All medicines →From NHSBSA Prescription Cost Analysis (Open Government Licence v3.0) and CMS State Drug Utilization Data. Both are gross amounts: neither system publishes its discounts or rebates per drug. Products combining several substances are not counted here.
How Insulin Detemir works
All drug targets →- Insulin receptor agonist AgonistTarget: INSR insulin receptorChEMBL only
- Cystic fibrosisPhase 3
- Cystic fibrosis-related diabetesPhase 3
- Alzheimer diseasePhase 2
- Gestational diabetesPhase 2
Mechanisms and diseases from ChEMBL via the Open Targets Platform (release 26.09), ChEMBL record CHEMBL2104391, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Guide to Pharmacology has no record of this medicine, so its targets rest on ChEMBL alone. Trial phases are not approvals: approved uses are shown from the regulators' own records where we hold them.
Patient leaflets for Insulin Detemir
The package leaflet is the official guide for patients that comes with every medicine. These links go to the regulators that publish it.
- EUEuropean Union: LevemirEMA product information: package leaflet and summary of product characteristics in every EU language.
- UKUnited Kingdom: Search MHRA ProductsPatient information leaflets and SmPCs for UK-licensed products.
- USUnited States: Search DailyMedFDA-approved labels, including patient and medication guides.
Leaflets differ between brands and countries; always read the one that comes with your own medicine. This is regulatory information, not medical advice.
Reference identifiers for Insulin Detemir
- ATC code
- A10AE05
- ChEMBL
- CHEMBL2104391
- DrugBank
- DB01307
- PubChem CID
- 72941722
- CAS number
- 169148-63-4
- FDA UNII
- 4FT78T86XV
- Wikidata
- Q410965
- Wikipedia
- Insulin detemir
Codes that identify this medicine in other databases, from Wikidata (CC0), matched by its ChEMBL ID. The ATC code is the WHO classification of what the medicine is used for.
What Levemir is used for
LEVEMIR is indicated to improve glycemic control in adult and pediatric patients with diabetes mellitus. Limitations of Use LEVEMIR is not recommended for the treatment of diabetic ketoacidosis. LEVEMIR is a long-acting human insulin analog indicated to improve glycemic control in adult and pediatric patients with diabetes mellitus ( 1 ). Limitations of Use: Not recommended for the treatment of diabetic ketoacidosis.
How it works
12.1 Mechanism of Action The primary activity of insulin, including LEVEMIR, is regulation of glucose metabolism. Insulins and its analogs lower blood glucose by stimulating peripheral glucose uptake, especially by skeletal muscle and fat, and by inhibiting hepatic glucose production. Insulin also inhibits lipolysis and proteolysis, and enhances protein synthesis.
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How this page is built
The facts on this page are pulled directly from official U.S. FDA datasets — they are not written from memory. Each field below names the dataset it came from, so you can check it yourself.
- FDA Drug Label (openFDA) ↗ Indications, mechanism of action and pharmacologic class
- Drugs@FDA ↗ First FDA approval date and the company holding the application
- FDA Drug Shortage Database ↗ Current US supply / shortage status
Plain-English summaries and drug-class explainers are written and reviewed by Sreepriya Prasannan (MSc Digital Transformation of Life Sciences (Innopharma Education / Griffith College); MSc & BSc Botany). Data is retrieved automatically from the sources above and cross-checked with AI-assisted verification (Anthropic's Claude) — brand and generic names are matched against the exact FDA product record so that a combination product or a different formulation cannot be mistaken for the drug on this page. An editor reviews the result before publication. We describe this in full in our editorial standards and corrections policy. The FDA data on this page was last retrieved on 7 Oct 2026. How every register is built: methodology · fixes we have made: corrections log.