Amylin, Takeda Advance Obesity Drug

San Diego-based Amylin Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:AMLN]]), along with its partner Takeda Pharmaceuticals, said late Monday that their experimental combination of metreleptin and pramlintide is being primed for final-stage Phase III clinical development for obesity. The decision was made after Amylin and Takeda reviewed data from a full 52 weeks of follow up from patients, which showed the drug consistently helped patients lose weight. Separately, Amylin said it is halting development of another obesity drug, davalintide, after a mid-stage trial showed it wasn’t as good as the combination therapy.

Author: Luke Timmerman

Luke is an award-winning journalist specializing in life sciences. He has served as national biotechnology editor for Xconomy and national biotechnology reporter for Bloomberg News. Luke got started covering life sciences at The Seattle Times, where he was the lead reporter on an investigation of doctors who leaked confidential information about clinical trials to investors. The story won the Scripps Howard National Journalism Award and several other national prizes. Luke holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and during the 2005-2006 academic year, he was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT.