Bristol-Myers' 3 new diabetes drugs

Bloomberg online is reporting Bristol's diabetes drugs carry $3 Billion Potential.

The company is teaming with Pfizer Inc., the world's biggest drugmaker, and AstraZeneca Plc to create two novel medicines that may change how diabetes is treated. A third candidate, now in final testing, is in the same family as Merck & Co.'s Januvia, a drug approved in October that analysts say may bring in $2.5 billion a year.

It turns out that saxagliptin, their DPP-4 inhibitor, produced skin lesions in monkeys just as Novartis's vildagliptin did which forced the FDA to react with an approvable letter.

With AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers is starting the third stage of regulatory testing on another medicine, dapagliflozin, in a new drug class called the SGLT2-inhibitors.  It promotes the excretion of excess blood glucose via the kidneys.

With Pfizer, Bristol-Myers is in preclinical development of a new class of drugs known as DGAT-1 inhibitors which interfere with the production and storage of fat.