BC: FAT FARM SWEEPSTAKES
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
...
...
.
.
ARNA @ 4.20
OREX @ 9.40
VVUS @ 9.70
The market is big enough for all three contenders,
so my play is to own equal $$$ amounts of all three ..
============================================================
Arena hasn't been rewarded by Wall Street as much as the other two companies, despite all three reporting success in multiple clinical trials. Arena's shares are up 9.4% for the year, recently at $4.59, compared with increases of 71% for Orexigen and 95% for Vivus, likely reflecting the higher weight loss seen in studies of the other two.
Arena expects to file with the Food and Drug Administration in December, leading to a review in the second half of 2010. Although the company is confident of approval, some have questioned whether the second late-stage trial met the agency's effectiveness benchmarks for obesity treatments.
Lief said he is confident lorcaserin will lead the market and said the obesity-treatment market could maintain five to 10 new products with each carving out a "very nice" slice of the pie.
He noted that about 90 million to 95 million people in the U.S. could be candidates for lorcaserin, and their physicians will want to prescribe a drug with minimal side effects, because most of them aren't morbidly obese.
"The vast majority of patients don't need to lose a hundred pounds, they are going to do to just fine losing 30 or 40 pounds," he said.
Furthermore, Lief said he doesn't believe that pharmaceutical companies are interested in partnering on a drug where the components are already on the market in generic form. Vivus's drug, Qnexa, is a combination of phentermine and topiramate, while Orexigen's drug, contrave, is a combination of naltrexone and bupropion.
Vivus and Orexigen have countered that criticism by arguing that the doses of their combinations make it difficult to prescribe the components separately.
Even in combination, though, dosage is an issue. Patients on Qnexa and contrave will have to slowly increase their dosage at the beginning, unlike those on lorcaserin. Lief said he believes his drug's simplicity gives Arena another advantage, especially as an initial therapy.
"The vast majority of current practice is single-agent therapy," he said.
=============================================================== |
