OBJECTIVES: Though having substantial costs, the new antidiabetics for Type 2 diabetes treatment present more alternatives for glycemic control of the disease. To evaluate their cost-effectiveness, the New Antidiabetics for Type 2 diabetes indexed on PubMed, EMBASE databases and American Diabetes Association abstracts were evaluated. METHODS: The cost effectiveness of Type 2 diabetes based on the new antidiabetics was analyzed through literature review. Searches were carried out in PubMed, EMBASE and ADA abstracts to identify the articles published from 2008 to 2010, keying in the terms ‘cost-effectiveness’ and ‘type 2 diabetes’ with language filtering, ‘English’. The language filter for ‘Turkish’ was also used but no result was achieved. Upon this filtration, the abstracts were reviewed to determine whether they included antidiabetics. RESULTS: Ten full texts, seven abstracts and three peer reviews were identified. In all studies, the cost-effectiveness of antidiabetics was assessed using the validated CORE Diabetes Model, except for two based on the Discrete Event Simulation Model. The outcomes from IMPROVE, PROactive, PRESENT, UKPDS and PREDICTIVE trials were used. In these studies, biphasic insulin aspart, exenatide, pioglitazone, insulin detemir, insulin glargine and sitagliptin were all studied under different settings and against various comparators. Biphasic insulin aspart versus human premix insulin was mostly found to be cost effective in certain studies. Exenatide versus insulin glargine was established to be likely cost-effective in two studies. Pioglitazone was found to be dominant compared to rosiglitazone. Insulin detemir was established to be cost-saving in comparison with OAD or NPH insulin, or insulin glargine. Sitagliptin was regarded as either cost-effective or cost-saving compared to rosiglitazone. CONCLUSIONS: Different results in terms of cost-effectiveness of various antidiabetics under certain settings and against varied comparators were achieved. In future, demonstrated gains in QALYs will be found to be essential for these antidiabetics to be regarded as cost-effective.