Penn Bioinvestor

A Biotech Triple Play: Dendreon, BioCryst and Arena

Let the fact to speak out for themselves (ARNA vs. VVUS)

lost at least 5% weight:
arna 66.40 arna placebo 32.10%
vvus 66% vvus placebo 15%

lost at least 10% weight:
arna 36.20% arna placebo 13.60%
vvus 41% vvus placebo 7%

lost at least 15% weight
arna no data
vvus 19% vvus placebo 2%

retention after 1 year:
arna 55%
vvus 70%

those results speak for themselves

A Biotech Triple Play: Dendreon, BioCryst and Arena

Eat less and more healthy is the safest way apparently. Why should people spend a lot of extra money simply to lose a few pounds by buying ARNA's "wonderful" drug which only produce less than 5% weight loss?


On Jun 07 02:02 PM PhillyDan wrote:

> CTIC: I could not disagree with you more about Arena's LOR and it's
> market potential and FDA approvability. Suggest you read Vivus'
> and Arena's PRs from the ADA. Both show very good results and safety
> profiles. Arena's Bloom study had over 3 times as many subjects
> as the Vivus Equate study and the time period was longer.
>
> As you will see if you read the press releases, 66% of subjects 'completing'
> (operative word is completing) the study lost >5% of their body weight;
> 39% lost >10% of their body weight. About 75% completed the two-year
> study. Vivus had similar results with about 70% completing the study.
> Qnexa had more people drop out due to adverse effects vs. LOR.<br/>
>
> So do some better DD before making incorrect and inaccurate comments.
> At this point in time, I would say that both Vivus and Arena have
> approvable obesity drugs with each having large market potential.
> Orexigen's Contrave could also be a player.
>
> A key point to remember is not how quickly you lose the weight, but
> how safely you lose the weight and maintain that weight loss over
> time.

A Biotech Triple Play: Dendreon, BioCryst and Arena

I don't think ARNA's drug will be approved, or it will have a big market as you predicted. So far, the best hope for obesity drug is Qnexa from VIVUS. When you compare their compound to ARNA's, you know how poor ARNA's compound is. There is not much chance for it to get much market share, even if they are lucky to get FDA approval.