Arena Pharmaceuticals is insisting data released this morning don’t worsen the case for its obesity drug, lorcaserin. But they do.
In fact, investors should be concerned about whether Arena is giving them good information about these risks, and about the chances for lorcaserin’s approval.
This morning, Arena Pharmaceuticals issued a press release containing promising results of a 600-patient study of lorcaserin in patients with diabetes. , somewhat positive data showing that lorcaserin increases weight loss and lowers blood sugar were outweighed by the fact that in the diabetes study patients on lorcaserin had more heart valve problems than those who received placebo, contradicting the results of far larger studies previously submitted to the Food and Drug Administration.
The issue here is not that this proves lorcaserin causes heart valve problems. It is pretty easy to argue that it doesn’t, particularly because the main thing driving the difference is a much lower rate of valve problems in the placebo group. That’s probably due to chance.
But Arena was asked by the FDA to rule out a heart valve risk, because lorcaserin works similarly to Redux, the withdrawn diet drug that resulted in the biggest legal settlement in pharmaceutical history.
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