Arena Gets October FDA Deadline

Arena Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ARNA]]), the San Diego-based developer of an obesity drug, said today that the FDA has set a deadline of October 22 for completing a review of Arena’s application to market lorcaserin in the U.S. The company’s application includes 18 clinical trials that enrolled more than 8,500 patients. If the FDA clears the drug for sale, it will be Arena’s first marketed product.

Author: Luke Timmerman

Luke is an award-winning journalist specializing in life sciences. He has served as national biotechnology editor for Xconomy and national biotechnology reporter for Bloomberg News. Luke got started covering life sciences at The Seattle Times, where he was the lead reporter on an investigation of doctors who leaked confidential information about clinical trials to investors. The story won the Scripps Howard National Journalism Award and several other national prizes. Luke holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and during the 2005-2006 academic year, he was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT.