Amylin Restructures Its Diabetes Collaborations

Amylin has entered into a worldwide collaboration with LifeScan, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, which gives the company development funding of its lead antidiabetic product AC137 all the way through to its commercial launch which is forecast for 1999, according to Amylin's vice president for Europe, Gareth Beynon. The deal could involve up to $70 million in payments to the firm.

LifeScan was also in the news earlier in the month when it entered into an agreement with Novo Nordisk to provide comprehensive disease management strategies for patients with diabetes. This agreement called for the two companies to collaborate on marketing Novo's insulin products and LifeScan's blood glucose monitoring products in world markets.

AC137 is being developed for the treatment of insulin-using Type I and Type II diabetic patients, and is an analog of the recently-discovered human hormone amylin, which is thought to play an important role in controlling blood glucose levels (Marketletters passim). Phase II clinical trials have shown statistically-significant improvements in post-prandial glucose control and reduced average blood glucose when AC137 was self-administered along with diabetic patients' usual insulin doses. The first series of pivotal Phase III trials are expected to begin in the second half of the year, according to Amylin.