(AP) -- COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - An Indiana doctor who helped develop some of the first pills taken to control diabetes has died at a hospital near his Hilton Head Island home.
Jane Kirtley says her father William R. Kirtley died Sunday after spending several months in failing health. He was 96. Dr. Kirtley worked on diabetes research for Eli Lilly & Company in Indianapolis for three decades after serving in World War II.
His daughter says Kirtley helped refine injectable insulin and helped develop pills that could be taken by Type 2 diabetics to help their bodies naturally produce insulin.
Kirtley's work helped improves the lives of people diagnosed with diabetes and he won the Banting Medal for his research from the American Diabetes Association in 1971.
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