NEW YORK An ever-rising tide of newly diagnosed diabetics can only mean one thing for retailers and suppliers offering diabetes solutions — opportunity — because where there’s pain, there’s gain.

And it doesn’t really matter if the Novo Nordisk study’s projection on the number of diabetics actually comes to pass. Because what does matter is the fact that the diabetes market already is large, it’s going to continue to grow and savvy retailers and suppliers of diabetes solutions will be able to partner on how to best serve that burgeoning population.

There is no shortage of examples on how retailers and suppliers are partnering around initiatives to better educate families with diabetes in a comprehensive effort to hopefully scuttle the projection that the number of diabetics in the United States will double up in the next 25 years.

Medicine Shoppe International, for example, revealed last year during Drug Store News’ 6th Annual Diabetes Roundtable an education initiative in partnership with Bayer Diabetes, where Bayer produced diabetes-friendly recipe cards for dissemination at their stores. And Safeway talked about the series of American Diabetes Association expos that the chain sponsors in an effort to help drive awareness around how to better live with diabetes.