Lilly, Boehringer revise terms of diabetes drugs alliance

(Reuters) - Eli Lilly and Co and German drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim said they had revised the structure of their diabetes alliance for some countries. Under the alliance signed in 2011, the companies agreed to develop and market diabetes drugs together in more than 50 countries. Boehringer and Lilly will continue to jointly develop and market these drugs in 17 countries, including the United States, they said in a statement on Wednesday. These countries represent over 90 percent of the anticipated market opportunity for these drugs, they said. In the remaining countries, each company will exclusively market the molecules it brought to the alliance and Lilly will receive upfront payments and ongoing payments instead of commissions there. Lilly spokesman Greg Kueterman declined to elaborate on these terms. The U.S. drugmaker will issue a revised 2014 forecast to include the impact of these changed terms, in a regulatory filing, Boehringer and Lilly said. So far, the companies have launched three treatments - Trajenta, Jardiance and Jentadueto - under the alliance. A new insulin glargine product, which is approved in Europe, has won tentative approval in the United States. Sanofi SA said on Tuesday that growth in sales of its diabetes drugs would stall next year due to pricing pressures in the United States. The French drugmaker said it expected sales of diabetes drugs to be flat next year, surprising analysts who had expected double-digit percentage growth. Shares of several diabetes drug developers including Lilly, Denmark's Novo Nordisk A/S and Merck & Co had fallen on Tuesday after Sanofi's comments. Lilly's shares were little changed at $65.04 in early trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday. (Reporting by Natalie Grover in Bangalore; Editing by Kirti Pandey)