The 25 percent staff reduction, which follows sluggish sales of its flagship Byetta diabetes med, is designed to save more than $100 million next year. After the dust clear, Amylin will have 1,800 employees. You may recall that, last summer, there were six deaths among patients with pancreatitis who took their Byetta diabetes drug (back story).

“The purpose of the reorganization is to really put us in a stronger position as a company to execute our business plan and become cash flow positive by 2010,” Amylin Pharmaceuticals ceo Daniel Bradbury says in a statement.

The drugmaker vows to increase sales of Byetta and its Symlin med for Type 1 diabetes, and bring to market a once-a-week version of Byetta, called exenatide LAR. The FDA recently rejected study data that was meant to show that exenatide LAR batches made by its partner, Alkermes, were equivalent to batches made at Amylin’s own facility in Ohio. The upshot is that, if Amylin has to conduct another study, it would likely delay plans for FDA approval by the middle of 2009 (back story).

To save money, R&D will continue to focus on an experimental therapy for obesity, one of which is in mid-stage clinical trials, but rather than run four different parts simultaneously, Amylin will run just one or two projects at once, and advance them only when there are positive results, Bradbury tells The San Diego Union-Tribune. Amylin will also look for partners for more of its R&D.