forza e coraggio agli azionisti di ARNA
1° MOTIVO:
Don’t Buy Orexigen After Arena’s Failure
By MATTHEW HERPER
This should be obvious, but based on the sudden 40% jump in share price of Orexigen, the tiny obesity drug developer, apparently not: There is no way that Orexigen is more valuable following a key vote against a drug being developed by its competitor, Arena Pharmaceuticals.
Arena’s drug, lorcaserin, always had the problem that it’s entire reason for existing was to prove a negative. Lorcaserin is meant to be more focused on the key receptor that made fenfluramine, a withdrawn diet drug, effective, but without fenfluramine’s tendency to cause heart valve problems. But the key take away from the 9-to-5 vote against lorcaserin from a panel of experts convened by the Food and Drug Administration is that the bar for obesity drugs is very high. Orexigen has a higher hurdle to jump.
And it should be. Aside from fenfluramine, many doctors remember rimonabant, from Sanofi-Aventis, which was touted as an amazing pill until psychiatric side effects, including suicidality, killed it. Abbott’s Meridia, which a panel voted to either restrict or withdraw yesterday (the vote basically left it up to the FDA) actually looks good by comparison, because at least data show for sure it causes heart attacks and patients can be warned. It still may get pulled.
Orexigen does have the advantage that its panel isn’t until December, and it has time to plan. But this doesn’t warrant much of a pop in valuation. And it doesn’t help it one whit if lorcaserin is not approved. The potential market for an obesity med is huge, but the side effects of every drug pharmaceutical companies have come up with so far have kept patients away. Competition is not a worry here.
If there’s any company here whose stock is worth buying, it’s actually likely to be Arena. This will depend, of course, on how far its sales fall, but it’s possible that lorcaserin could eventually be approved, probably with restriction including cardiac monitoring, and generate sales of several hundred million dollars. That’s not a blockbuster, but it could still be profitable. The biggest question for potential investors would be whether Arena’s management did enough to let past shareholders know about potential risks ahead of this FDA decision.
2°MOTIVO
Ocean Tomo 300® Patent Index Family | IPXI
ARENA e' una delle poche aziende (assieme alla Sequenom e poche altre del Nasdaq Biotech) ad essere citata nell'OCEAN 300 TOMO INDEX
Ultimamente hanno registrato (il 17 agosto us), una ricerca sull'ALZMEIER..
Se non erro hanno in sperimentazione qualcosa sul Diabete.
Indubbiamente hanno sbagliato qualcosa con la FDA, come i mancati dati sul D.O.