Acute Pancreatitis

Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Eli Lilly and Company and Alkermes, Inc. today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued a complete response letter regarding the New Drug Application for BYDUREON™ (exenatide for extended-release injectable suspension).

UCSF scientists have discovered how a mutated gene known as Kras is able to hijack mouse cells damaged by acute pancreatitis, putting them on the path to becoming pancreatic cancer cells.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Victoza (liraglutide), a once-daily injection to treat type 2 diabetes in some adults.

Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Eli Lilly and Company and Alkermes, Inc. today announced positive results from a head-to-head study comparing exenatide once weekly, an investigational diabetes therapy, to BYETTA® (exenatide) injection taken twice daily, in patients with type 2 diabetes.

New research published in the December issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons finds that the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP) is a powerful tool for assessing outcomes of uncommon, high-risk surgical procedures, including pancreatic necrosectomy.

Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics (AMT) and Progenika Biopharma announced today that the companies have entered into a development and commercialization agreement for LPLchip(TM), a diagnostic tool to rapidly diagnose patients with complete and partial lipoprotein lipase deficiency (LPLD). AMT has developed Glybera(R) as a gene therapy for patients with this disease.

Repligen Corporation reported today that it has completed patient treatment in its Phase 3 clinical trial of RG1068, synthetic human secretin, in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the pancreas. The study is designed to assess the sensitivity and specificity of RG1068 in conjunction with MRI for the detection of pancreatic duct abnormalities compared to MRI alone.

Gastrectomy is commonly performed for both benign and malignant lesions. Although the incidence of post-gastrectomy acute pancreatitis (PGAP) is low compared to other well-recognized post-operative complications, it has been reported to be associated with a high mortality rate.

Merck has thoroughly reviewed the safety data for sitagliptin, and sitagliptin was not associated with an increase in the incidence of pancreatitis in preclinical studies or in clinical trials of up to two years in duration with more than 6,000 patients.