LISBON, Portugal — A drug made by Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly showed "meaningful and durable" reductions in blood sugar in adults with Type 2 diabetes, according to results of a late-stage clinical trial presented Friday at a conference in Europe.

BI and Lilly presented data from their 102-week phase-3 study of Tradjenta (linagliptin) at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes' 47th annual meeting in Lisbon, Portugal, showing that the drug lowered HbA1C levels by 0.8% over the long term. The drug is marketed in Europe under the name Trajenta.

"These results show that the efficacy achieved by linagliptin is reliable and meaningful in a clinical setting, but also that it is durable over the long term," said David Owens, a medical professor at Cardiff University School of Medicine, in Wales.

In the 2,121-patient study, patients were given Tradjenta, Tradjenta with metformin or Takeda's Actos (pioglitazone) or Trajdenta with metformin and sulphonylurea.