Experimental obesity pill shows heart benefit

Arena Pharmaceuticals said on Tuesday detailed results from a second pivotal trial of its experimental obesity drug, lorcaserin, show that it improves cardiovascular risk factors.

The company reported in August that the 4,000-patient trial found that 47.2 percent of subjects taking lorcaserin, an oral drug, lost 5 percent or more of their weight after a year, compared with 25 percent of placebo patients.

At a meeting of the Obesity Society in Washington, Arena reported over the weekend similar secondary findings from its first pivotal trial of the drug.

Arena, along with rivals Vivus Inc and Orexigen Therapeutics Inc, is working to develop the first new prescription weight loss drug in a decade.

Lorcaserin works in a way similar to fenfluramine, which was part of the fen-phen diet cocktail before it was withdrawn in 1997 after being linked to heart valve damage.

Arena’s drug is designed to block appetite signals in the brain, but by being much more selective than fenfluramine in the receptors it affects. Fenfluramine also binds to a separate cell receptor in the heart.

The company said lorcaserin was not associated with heart valve problems.

Arena also said its trial found that lorcaserin helped improve patients’ cardiovascular risk factors including cholesterol and triglycerides, without increasing blood pressure or heart rate.

Measurements of quality of life, including physical function, self esteem, sexual life, public distress and work, improved in a dose-dependent fashion, the company said.

Looking only at patients who complied with treatment, about two-thirds met the 5 percent weight loss threshold.

The results “are consistent with making this a first-line therapy for us,” said Arena Chief Executive Jack Lief. He said the company is on schedule to file late this year for regulatory approval.

He also said there is “a lot of activity” surrounding discussions with potential partners for lorcaserin but declined to give any details.

“Lorcaserin is the only single agent (weight loss drug) and this is what physicians want,” Lief said.

The CEO said Arena has no plans to study lorcaserin in combination with other weight loss drugs.

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By Deena Beasley

LOS ANGELES (Reuters)