The recent withdrawals of Acomplia and Reductil have left a big gap in the weight loss drug market. Obese patients might have been left disheartened that pharmaceutical companies might never be able to produce a safe and effective drug to combat the obesity epidemic.
Weight loss drugs it seems, however, are rather like buses: you wait a while for one, then three come along at once. Lorcaserin, Contrave and Qnexa are three weight loss drugs, which have completed the final stages of clinical trials and are now with the Food and Drugs Administration where their safety and efficacy will be assessed.
As we have already reported in The Online Clinic blog, researchers have reported great successes in the clinical trials of Qnexa. The results seem positive too for Lorcaserin, a drug being developed by Arena Pharmaceuticals. Whilst the weight loss reported was not as significant as that for Qnexa (about 5 percent compared with between 8 and 15 per cent for Qnexa) Lorcaserin was also shown to improve fasting glucose levels and blood lipid measures.
With the recent scares over Reductil and Acomplia however, the race is still an open one. The successful drug or drugs, that is to say the ones that get approval from the FDA or the European Medicines Agency, are the ones that are proven to be, in the first instance safe, and in the second, effective.
Arena is hoping that the drug will be able to moderate appetite and prevent excess hunger cravings. Arena hopes that they will be able to put Lorcaserin to commercial use later in 2010.