Arena Patients Keep Weight Off, Bodes Well for Partnership

Arena's big news at the American Diabetes Association meeting last weekend was that the analysis of the two-year pivotal Phase III BLOOM study data showed that patients were keeping off the weight they were losing on lorcaserin. This of course is terrific and bodes well for a potential partnership, something Arena will need soon, as we have said previously.

It sounds as though potential partners are now waiting for the BLOSSOM results in September. This is, of course, a disappointment to all of us who had hoped the BLOOM results in March might do the trick, but in the current environment, caution is understandable.

Curiously, Jack Lief, CEO of Arena, did the interview trail with Mike Huckman of CNBC, while neither Vivus nor Orexigen agreed to an interview. I could read a lot into these tea leaves, although it's probably nothing. Mike has been critical of Arena's handling of the press in the past, so maybe this was some sort of olive branch.

Disclosures: No positions

Comments

[dakyne]

Ruthanne, does this mean you have turned the corner on ARNA? :-)

2009 Jun 10 11:05 AM

[PhillyDan]

Huckman was critical of how he thought Arena handled the conference call on March 30th to announce the Bloom results. In my opinion, it was a bit of "whine" on Huckman's part because if you were set up to receive alerts from Arena, then you were notified of the CC on Sunday of the CC on early Monday morning.

On the partnership issue, it is my "speculation" that Jack Lief is holding his cards close to his vest. My hunch is that Arena has potential deals with a few potential partners with T's and C's on the table, but knows if they wait until the Blossom results are announced; and they are as good or better than Bloom's results, that they can get better T's and C's from the potential partners.

Unlike some Arena doubters, Lief knows they have enough cash and options for cash to get to NDA and beyond. Although, I must admit, I would prefer to see a partnership sooner than later but trust that Lief knows very well what he/Arena is doing.

2009 Jun 10 12:06 PM