Inclusion criteria:

   - Patients with active acromegaly (based on elevated GH and IGF-1 levels)

   - Patients who have undergone one or more pituitary surgeries, but have not been treated
   medically, or de-novo patients presenting a visible pituitary adenoma on MRI and who
   refuse pituitary surgery or for whom pituitary surgery is contraindicated

   - Patients for whom written informed consent to participate in the study has been
   obtained prior to any study related activity

Exclusion criteria:

   - Patients who are being or were treated with octreotide, lanreotide, dopamine agonists
   or GH antagonists with the exception of a single dose of short-acting octrotide or
   short-acting dopamine agonists. In case of a single dose of short-acting octrotide,
   the dose should not be used to predict the response to the octretide treatment. The
   single dose of short-acting octreotide or short-acting dopamine agonists should not be
   administered in the 3 days prior to randomization

   - Patients with compression of the optic chiasm causing any visual field defect

   - Patients who have received pituitary irradiation within the last ten years prior to
   visit 1

   - Poorly controlled diabetic patients

Other protocol-defined inclusion/exclusion criteria may apply