OBJECTIVES: Insulin and other diabetes treatments are generally considered cost effective treatment options as they reduce the incidence of complications, increase life expectancy and improve quality of life. This paper quantifies in a new model the life years saved in the Chinese diabetic population between 2000 and 2010 due to sales of Novo Nordisk insulin. METHODS: The CORE diabetes model was used to make projections of long-term survival rates for people with type 2 diabetes treated with defined therapies; modern insulin monotherapy (MI Mono), Modern Insulin combined with Oral Anti Diabetics (OAD), human insulin combined with OAD (HI OAD) and human insulin monotherapy (HI Mono). In the human insulin scenarios, the base case cohort characteristics were based on the Chinese DiabCare data for 1998 (mean age 56.71 years, 58% male, duration of diabetes 7 years, HbA1c 8.81%). The modern insulin scenarios (introduced around 2005) are based on cohort characteristics observed in the Chinese PRESENT study (mean age 57.21 years, 51% male, duration of diabetes 6 years, HbA1c 7.93%). Treatment effects in the four interventions modelled; MI Mono, MI OAD, HI OAD and HI Mono relied on published sources (HbA1c; -1%, -1.82%, -1.2% and 0.7% respectively). The annual size of the population treated was calculated using annual Novo Nordisk sales and average daily insulin dosage as observed in the DiabCare China study. This process was then repeated for each year from 2000 to 2010 making it possible to cumulate the number of life years saved. RESULTS: The undiscounted life expectancy for the 4 different baseline cohorts modelled in the CORE diabetes model was improved by 2.9, 2.7, 2.2, 1.7 for MI OAD, MI Mono, HI OAD, HI Mono respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The cumulated undiscounted life years saved between 2000 and 2010  was estimated at 136.198.66 due to treatment with Novo Nordisk insulin in China.