Abbott and AstraZeneca Expand Relationship to Include Co-Promotion of ...( ABBOTT PARK Ill. and WILMINGTON D...)

ABBOTT PARK, Ill. and WILMINGTON, Del., Aug. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Abbott (NYSE: ABT) and AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) announced today that they have entered into an agreement for Abbott to promote AstraZeneca's CRESTOR(R) (rosuvastatin calcium), a medication used along with diet to reduce high cholesterol.

Under the terms of the agreement, Abbott will obtain the non-exclusive right to promote CRESTOR alongside AstraZeneca in the United States, excluding Puerto Rico. Specific financial terms were not disclosed.

CRESTOR is a once-daily prescription statin medication indicated for use as an adjunct to diet in the treatment of various lipid disorders including primary hyperlipidemia, mixed dyslipidemia and isolated hypertriglyceridemia, and to slow the progression of atherosclerosis in adult patients as part of a treatment strategy to lower Total-C and LDL-C to target levels. CRESTOR is available in a 5-, 10-, 20-, and 40-mg dose.

"Abbott's dyslipidemia portfolio includes a number of therapies to help physicians manage a patient's total lipid profile," said Nicole Mowad-Nassar, divisional vice president, Primary Care, Abbott. "With robust clinical data to support its use in managing cholesterol, CRESTOR is another important therapeutic option we can now offer physicians."

This agreement is the second collaboration between AstraZeneca and Abbott. In 2006, the companies announced an agreement to develop a fixed-dose combination of the active ingredients in Abbott's investigational TriLipix(TM) (
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