INDIANAPOLIS (dpa-AFX) - Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. (AMLN), Eli Lilly and Co. (LLY) and Alkermes Inc. (ALKS), reported positive results from long-term extensions of the DURATION-1 and 3 studies evaluating Bydureon, an investigational medication for type 2 diabetes.
Data from the DURATION-1 study showed that after three years, patients receiving Bydureon experienced a significant reduction in A1C, a measure of average blood sugar over three months, and weight compared to baseline.
Bydureon-treated patients also experienced improvements from baseline in several cardiometabolic risk markers.
Separately, results from the DURATION-3 study showed that at 84 weeks, patients treated with Bydureon experienced significantly greater A1C reduction from baseline, sustained weight loss and a lower risk of hypoglycemia than patients treated with Lantus.
A1C reduction was 1.2 percentage points for Bydureon compared with 1.0 percentage points for Lantus. Also, significantly more patients taking Bydureon achieved an A1C of less than or equal to 6.5 percent.
Patients on Bydureon lost an average of 4.5 pounds while those on Lantus gained an average of 5.3 pounds, a difference of 9.8 pounds between the treatments.
In a separate release, Amylin and Eli Lilly announced results from a retrospective analysis of more than 778,000 patients that showed the addition of Byetta injection to pre-existing diabetes treatment regimens was associated with a reduced likelihood of heart failure, especially among patients receiving insulin.
The retrospective analysis used data from the GE Healthcare Centricity electronic medical record to analyze the likelihood of heart failure for Byetta in combination with certain other diabetes treatments compared with control groups of patients not treated with Byetta.
Across all therapies, patients who received Byetta were 54 percent less likely to experience heart failure compared to patients not treated with Byetta.
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