In late June 2012, Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc was acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. but within a year, BMS plugged the plug on the firm and by 2014 the facility was shuttered. In January 2012, after a 12-year research process the company received regulatory approval from FDA for Bydureon, a once-weekly injection that treats type 2 diabetes. The BMS acquisition included an involvement bu AstraZeneca that paid $3.5 billion for a portion of the profits from Amylins drugs estimated at the time at some $1 billion per year. Amylin had been a high flying biopharmaceutical company focused on developing innovative medicines to improve the lives of people with metabolic diseases. The company developed therapies to treat diabetes and associated disorders based on the hormone amylin, which was believed to play an important role in the regulation of metabolism. The FDA approved BYETTA (exenatide), which helps patients with type 2 diabetes control their blood sugar. Amylin Pharmaceuticals developed the drug with Eli Lilly. Its second marketed product SYMLIN (FDA-approved in 2005) helped control glucose levels for patients with either type 1 or type 2 diabetes. With various other licensing and collaaorative agrements, long term associations with Eli Lilly and Alkermes, enabled development of exenatide in an extended release formulation, called exenatide LAR
