Abbott gets European approval for Knoll's Reductil

Abbott Laboratories of the USA's German unit Knoll GmbH, which wasrecently acquired from BASF (Marketletter March 12) says that it has won approval from the European Commission for its anti-obesity agent Reductil (sibutramine). The drug was recommended for approval by the European Union's Committee for Proprietary Medicinal Products at the end of last year (Marketletter November 27, 2000).

Knoll says that Reductil, which is sold in the USA as Meridia, should be available throughout the EU by mid-2001. The drug is already sold in nearly 40 countries and three million prescriptions have been written since its introduction in 1998. The approval comes just after Abbott announced a major obesity and diabetes alliance with Millennium Pharmaceuticals (Marketletter March 19).