Small molecule agents that act as agonists for free fatty acid receptor 1 (FFA1, referred to as GPR40 before it was de-orphaned in 2003) is a promising class of drugs to treat type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) which holds no risk of causing the development of hypoglycaemia.1 The gene discussed is FFAR1; the disease is type 2 diabetes mellitus.