Sanofi (France), Medtronic, Inc. Team Up To Develop New Diabetes Devices

"Diabetes is unfortunately rising in prevalence around the world, driving up system costs and, most importantly, adversely impacting the lives of millions of people. Like Sanofi, we believe there is tremendous opportunity to better align care across the diabetes care continuum through new and varied technologies and patient care management strategies," said Omar Ishrak, Chairman and CEO, Medtronic. "Medtronic is committed to taking a broader approach, expanding beyond our core strength in Type 1 diabetes, to co-develop an array of technologies and patient services that will deliver superior clinical outcomes at an affordable price. We also know we can't do it alone - so we are particularly excited to join in this effort with Sanofi who, like us, is committed to exploring new avenues and approaches to solving the challenges associated with diabetes."

The alliance will pair Sanofi's extensive insulin portfolio and drug development expertise with Medtronic's expertise in insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitoring. One of the priorities of the alliance will be to deliver novel drug-device combinations, including new form factors that are affordable, convenient and easy to-use to increase therapy adherence and deliver better outcomes. These efforts will focus on improving the management of Type 2 diabetes, especially for people who cannot achieve glucose control even with multiple daily injections of insulin.

Care management services, another priority area for collaboration, will be delivered through a program designed to guide people with Type 2 diabetes who are failing to achieve disease control on oral therapies through the initiation phase of insulin treatment. Insulin initiation can be challenging as a high number of patients drop insulin treatment in this early phase.

As world leaders in complementary segments of diabetes care Sanofi and Medtronic already have an agreement in place serving specific Type 1 diabetes patients in Europe with an implantable insulin delivery system, and intend to add this project and additional innovative projects to the alliance. Implementation of the alliance is subject to the negotiation and execution of a definitive agreement between the companies.

About 3 months ago, AbbVie announced the initiation of a global Phase III clinical trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of its investigational compound, veliparib (ABT-888), in patients with previously untreated locally advanced or metastatic squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The trial will compare patients randomized to receive either the standard chemotherapies of carboplatin and paclitaxel with the addition of veliparib, versus patients receiving carboplatin and paclitaxel with the addition of placebo.

"Lung cancer is one of most common cancers worldwide and can be difficult to treat, particularly when it is diagnosed in the more advanced stages of the disease," said Scott BrunM.D., vice president, Pharmaceutical Development, AbbVie. "This Phase III trial is an important step in the development of veliparib and in potentially providing patients with squamous non-small cell lung cancer with a new treatment option."

This randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, multicenter, Phase III trial will recruit approximately 900 patients. The primary efficacy outcome of the trial is overall survival (OS). Other pre-specified outcome measures include progression-free survival (PFS), and objective response rate (ORR). The safety of veliparib will also be evaluated in the trial.