The healthcarecompany's BackupCareprogram allows those that rely on NovoNordisk employees asprimary caregivers to have access to specialists, billing theemployeeonlya minor co-pay.
Over a longer horizon, Bristol still has not performed as well asNovoNordisk, the diabetes specialist that has outperformed most other drug makers over the past year but which did not do as well this year, or biotechnology firms like Alexion, focused on rare diseases, or Biogen Idec, focused on multiple sclerosis.
And there is wide disagreement over how the new cases will affect the use of the drug, or of the next-generation versions of it that are being developed by such drug companies as Roche and NovoNordisk.