FDA Rejects Orexigen’s Weight-Loss Drug, Arena Lays Off 66, ResMed CEO Jumps to CareFusion, & More San Diego Life Sciences News

A series of private announcements and public policy changes in recent days put a spotlight on entrepreneurs nationwide. As Wade wrote in a thoughtful analysis, we seem to have placed a much bigger bet as a nation on early stage startups—and the life sciences news out of San Diego this past week seemed to reflect all the opportunities, risks, and expectations that encompass such bets.

—In an unexpected blow, FDA regulators rejected the new drug application for Contrave, the weight-loss drug developed by San Diego-based Orexigen Therapeutics (NASDAQ: [[ticker:OREX]]). The FDA said the drugmaker must conduct an extensive new clinical trial of the drug, which is a combination of bupropion and naltrexone, that evaluates the risk of “major cardiovascular events.”

—Across town, San Diego’s Arena Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ARNA]]) eliminated 66 jobs, or about 25 percent of its workforce. That’s estimated to save the company about $13.5 million a year as Arena works to resurrect the prospects for lorcaserin, another weight-loss drug that was rejected by the FDA last year.

—The Scripps Research Institute’s longtime president, Richard Lerner, is expected to step down soon. No formal announcement has been made, but Luke reported that Berkeley chemist and molecular biologist Michael Marletta may be the leading candidate as Lerner’s successor.

—At a time when California’s biomedical sector lost about 6,000 jobs, a report from the California Healthcare Institute found that San Diego added 678 jobs in 2009, as total employment in San Diego’s biomedical sector hit 24,157. Job gains in San Diego was a surprising theme that emerged in this year’s 2011 California Biomedical Industry Report.

—Kieran Gallahue resigned as

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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.