In June, Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), of New York, agreed to purchase San Diego-based Amylin Pharmaceuticals. In an acquisition twist, BMS negotiated a deal to sell half of Amylin to AstraZeneca, of London, expanding their diabetes partnership. The total value of the purchase is ∼$7 billion including Amylin's net debt and a contractual payment obligation to Amylin's former partner Eli Lilly, of Indianapolis. “I thought it was a good deal with a creative structure,” says Mark Schoenebaum, an analyst with New York–based ISI Group. The purchase includes three marketed drugs, Symlin (pramlintide acetate), Byetta (exenatide) and Bydureon, the recently approved, once-weekly version of Byetta (Nat. Biotechnol. 30, 201, 2012). But most of the acquisition's value is tied up in a once-monthly version of exenatide, an analog of the insulin-boosting, glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) still in development. “The value is 90% Bydureon and Bydureon life-cycle extensions,” Schoenebaum says. Other assets in Amylin's pipeline are metreleptin, a recombinant form of human leptin, currently under review at the US Food and Drug Administration, to treat diabetes and/or hypertriglyceridemia in patients with rare forms of inherited or acquired lipodystrophy. Amylin is also developing AC165198, a hybrid fusion of two different peptide hormones, to treat diabetes.