Januvia, Byetta double pancreatitis risk, JAMA analysis finds

The diabetes treatments Januvia and Byetta may double patients' risk of pancreatitis, a new study finds. The drugs, sold by Merck ($MRK) and a Bristol-Myers Squibb ($BMY)/AstraZeneca ($AZN) partnership, have been linked to pancreatitis before, but the JAMA Internal Medicine study puts a number to that risk for the first time. Researchers analyzed insurance records to find that patients hospitalized with pancreatitis were twice as likely to be using Januvia or Byetta, when compared with diabetics who didn't have pancreatitis, Bloomberg reports. "This is the first real study to give an estimate of what the risk is," said study author Sonal Singh, assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University. "[U]ntil now we just had a few case reports." Report