For more than a year, Eli Lilly and Co. has been viewed by investors as a laggard stock with one, slim shot at producing a huge jackpot: its experimental Alzheimer’s drug. But now company leaders are trying to direct investor attention toward the drugmaker’s diabetes portfolio.
European regulators have approved an expanded use for the diabetes treatment Byetta, developed by Eli Lilly and Co. and Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. The FDA approved the same expanded use last fall.
Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. will introduce “over a dozen” new products in China in the next five years, focusing on “unmet needs” such as cancer and diabetes, CEO John Lechleiter said this week.
Eli Lilly and Co., after more than a decade of setbacks, is counting on diabetes to help it survive a string of patent losses on other products that have begun to sap the drugmaker’s sales.
In 1993, only 3.8 percent of Hoosier adults had full-blown diabetes, compared with 9.8 percent today.
Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Eli Lilly and Co. have agreed to end a decade-long diabetes partnership to resolve litigation. Amylin will make an upfront payment of $250 million to Lilly and future revenue-sharing payments of $1.2 billion plus interest.
Roche Diagnostics will partner with a San Diego firm to incorporate its continuous glucose monitoring sensor with a wireless handheld device Roche is developing to help diabetics test their blood sugar and track their glucose levels throughout the day.
Eli Lilly and Co. hid the diabetes risks of Zyprexa to protect sales, a lawyer for the family of a 20-year-old patient who died while taking the medicine told a jury in the first case to go to trial over the drug. The attorney asked jurors to award the family $40 million in compensatory damages.
A German researcher disputed the validity of a study that found Byetta and another diabetes drug increase cancer risk.
Drugmakers Eli Lilly and Co. and Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. said Monday that patients taking their potential once-weekly diabetes treatment, Bydureon, saw a significant improvement in cardiovascular risk factors.
