Lizard spit?

When the GP I am currently attached to asked me, "You haven't heard of lizard spit?" when we were discussing the treatment of diabetes, I thought I heard her wrongly. It must be a name of a drug - lisarspid? lizer-speed? And as expected, her "I'll tell you later" never really arrived.

After several unfruitful tries with variations of lizard spit sound-alikes, a search for "new treatment diabetes" turns up this article from the Telegraph:

Scientists have developed a new treatment for the disease following the discovery that a chemical in the saliva of the pink and black Gila monster contains a chemical in its saliva, which is similar to a human hormone that helps regulate blood sugar.

Exenatide (trade name Byetta) is a synthetic form of an enzyme from the Gila monster's saliva which helps the lizard regulate its blood sugar levels in between its far-spaced meals. It increases glucose-induced insulin procduction in the beta islet cells, while decreasing inappropriate glucagon production.

This almost has a Darwinian feel to it, though it doesn't involve Galapagos lizards, or a finding as shocking. But I think questions asked would be similar - like how people would have asked how he got to his theories by observing lizards, I would ask how on earth did the researchers come up with something like this from lizard's spit?! The wonders never cease.