My timing is rather impeccable. In a review of obesity drugs on Friday, I said that Arena
Arena's lead drug, lorcaserin, targets the same receptor as one of the components in the infamous diet drug fen-phen, made by American Home Products (now Wyeth
Apparently, investors weren't that worried about the safety data; the stock spiked a little on Monday after investors heard the good news, but has since retreated to Friday's levels.
Like fellow development-stage drugmakers Exelixis
The good news is that Arena appears to have enough cash to get it to the point where it can file a marketing application in 2009. Hopefully, the market will be in better shape by then and it can do a dilutive financing to fund the drug launch. Alternatively, it could out-license lorcaserin to reduce its cash-burn. If Merck