Abbott Laboratories and Millennium Pharmaceuticals announced that they are no longer engaged in an alliance to discover, develop and commercialize compounds in the fields of Type 2 diabetes and obesity.

Abbott retains a license to targets, compounds and certain technologies that were the subject of the collaboration and will continue to independently develop those that provide the most promise as part of its metabolics research and development program.

"The alliance with Millennium was a successful collaboration resulting in many interesting compounds, targets and technology," said Terry Opgenorth, vice president, Metabolics Drug Discovery, Abbott Laboratories. "Millennium's business strategy has evolved over time and they have decided to exit this area of research. However, Abbott remains fully committed to its diabetes and obesity drug discovery program and will be expanding the significant efforts already underway from the alliance moving forward."

Full financial terms of the agreement have not been disclosed. As a result of the termination of the agreement, Millennium will register the shares of stock owned by Abbott.