Eli Lilly rolls out diabetes drug Byetta in Europe

Last Updated: 2007-04-26 10:05:01 -0400 (Reuters Health)

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Eli Lilly and Co. said on Thursday its Byetta type 2 diabetes drug would shortly be launched in Britain after its German roll out earlier this month and a planned introduction in Scandinavia next week.

In November last year, European health regulators approved the sale of Byetta. The medicine, known chemically as exanatide, was approved for sale in the U.S in April 2005.

"By the end of the year we hope to have launched the product in more than 30 countries," Eli Lilly Denmark director Angel Perez-Agenjo told Reuters.

Byetta, which Eli Lilly markets with Amylin Pharmaceuticals, is the first in a new class of diabetes medicines known as incretin mimetics that regulate glucose levels like naturally occurring hormones.

The drug is expected to face tough competition from Merck & Co. Inc.'s Januvia, approved in the U.S. last year and Novo Nordisk's Liraglutide, currently in phase III testing.

Perez-Agenjo declined to give a figure for expected European sales of Byetta. The drug's sales were $146.5 million in the first quarter this year, a 7-percent rise compared to the fourth quarter last year.