The Acomplia Report, since 2004 the only independent newsletter reporting on the development of diet drug Acomplia (rimonabant), announced today that effective immediately, the online newsletter will be named the Zimulti Acomplia Report.

The name change was made after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and manufacturer Sanofi-Aventis confirmed that the diet pill, if approved for American sale, will be marketed in the United States under the name Zimulti.

"Because Europeans and others around the world who can already purchase the diet drug know it as Acomplia, we obviously wanted to keep Acomplia as part of the newsletter name," said editor and publisher Milton R. Benjamin.

"But if the FDA does approve sale of the diet drug, millions of Americans will be buying it as Zimulti, so it makes sense to incorporate Zimulti into the name of the newsletter as well," Benjamin added.

For the convenience of readers who have been tracking progress of Acomplia through this newsletter for the past three years, the Zimulti Acomplia Report will continue to be available through the long established web address of the Acomplia Report (www.AcompliaReport.com).

The Zimulti Acomplia Report will also be available through a new web address, www.ZimultiAcompliaReport.com.

The newsletter will not, however, be available through the web address ZimultiReport.com, since Sanofi-Aventis registered this and many other web addresses before we even learned of the name in an effort to block independent news coverage of the diet drug.

Medical Week News, publisher of the newsletter, also announced that effective immediately, it was ceasing separate publication of the Rimonabant Report.

"We started the newsletter at an early stage when many people knew this new drug as rimonabant, but now almost everyone searches for news of the drug as Acomplia or Zimulti," Benjamin said. The old RimonabantReport.com web address will henceforth direct readers to the new Zimulti Acomplia Report.