Although we don't believe in timing the market or panicking over market movements, we do like to keep an eye on big changes -- just in case they're material to our investing thesis.
What: Shares of biopharma company Vivus
So what: As if the obesity-drug developers needed any more bad news. Vivus, along with competitors Arena Pharmaceuticals
Now what: Safety concerns seem to have set a particularly high hurdle for the obesity drug developers and, as such, this is bad news for Qnexa and Vivus. Of course while the fact that the FDA has cranked up its threat level on topiramate, it's not as if this were an unknown issue. The issues with topiramate were largely known, and the FDA had already highlighted the birth-defect issue with regards to topiramate and Qnexa.
On the flip side, while Arena and Orexigen have issues of their own to deal with, a setback for Vivus could mean be a positive for them if they can get their drugs to market (though that's a big "if" right now).
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