Orexigen Therapeutics has started recruiting for the final phase of the Phase III clinical trials for its lead obesity drug – Contrave. We have previously written about Contrave on this news channel and you can see further details on this exciting new drug in our obesity archives. Essentially Contrave combines a slow release form of bupropion and naltrexone. The combination of these two drugs appears to control the amount of food that a patient consumes and the energy expended by that person. In earlier clinical trials this was demonstrated to help people lose clinically significant amounts of weight compared with those patients on a placebo. Orexigen has intimated that it intends to file for approval for this new medicine in 2009.