Arena’s Diet Pill Shows Cancer Risk, Little Benefit
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Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s experimental diet pill may cause cancer and works only by a ‘slim margin,’ U.S. regulators said, sending shares down the most ever.
The medicine, lorcaserin, was linked to “a number of malignant tumor types” in studies of rats, Food and Drug Administration staff said in a report released today. The drug helped people lose 3 percent more weight than a placebo, short of the recommended 5 percent, the agency said.