Arena’s Lorcaserin Helped Overweight Adults Lose More Weight
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Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s experimental weight-loss drug, which would become the company’s first marketed product if approved, enabled twice as many people to lose at least 5 percent of their body weight as those getting a placebo, a study found.
About 48 percent of those taking lorcaserin lost 5 percent or more of their weight after one year compared with about 20 percent of the placebo group, researchers said today in the New England Journal of Medicine. More of those taking lorcaserin maintained that weight loss through the second year of the trial than those on a placebo, according to the company-sponsored study, part of Arena’s quest for U.S. regulatory clearance.