Bristol-Myers Squibb provides grants for diabetes research schemes

Bristol-Myers Squibb has announced the allocation of four grants to researchers in the US who are studying the link between type 2 diabetes, depression and distress.

The three-year grants are worth $450,000 (279,300 pounds) and will support projects that examine ways of integrating behavioural services into diabetes care, assess support provision for ethnic minorities and develop new ways of coordinating care more effectively.

These awards coincide with World Diabetes Day 2013 and the third anniversary of the company's own Together on Diabetes initiative, a flagship philanthropic project to promote health equity and improve outcomes among diabetic adults in the US, China and India.

John Damonti, president of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, said: "There is a need for the development of short and long-term diabetes care models and self-management programmes that address these conditions in an integrated way – especially for heavily burdened populations."

This comes after the firm announced earlier this month that it will be looking to discontinue its broad-based discovery work in hepatitis C, diabetes and neuroscience as part of a new and more specialised research strategy.