Ahorukomeye, P et al. Elife. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.41574

In vertebrates, insulin is only active in its monomeric form, but the hormone tends to self-associate into stable inactive hexameres. This property means that insulin preparations for the treatment of diabetes only become effective 30 min after injection, when hexameric dissociation occurs. Strategies to develop faster-acting insulin by removing the region needed for oligomerization have resulted in less active products because the region is also critical for receptor activation. A type of insulin in the venom used by fish-hunting cone snails to induce hypoglycemic shock in their prey could hold the key to designing monomeric fast-acting insulin: despite lacking the region critical for self-assembly, venom insulin activated the human insulin receptor and lowered blood glucose levels in mouse and zebrafish models of diabetes.