Alright Pharma Investors, we are a bit light on the news today, but heck that never stopped the daily pharma watch before!
Arena Pharmaceuticals (ARNA):
Arena announced some news yesterday, the company said Merck is going to terminate the collaboration agreement with them to develop MRK-1903, an atherosclerosis drug, due to the failure of it in mid-stage trials. The drug failed to meet the primary endpoint in a phase II study. I’ll be honest here, I think the failed clinical trial was probably a lot worse for Merck than for Arena, Arena has just filed an NDA for their lead drug candidate, a weight loss drug, while Merck is still battling Abbott Laboratories for a comparable Niacin treatment after the controversial results of the ARBITER 6 trial were released last month.
Orexigen (OREX):
Orexigen said this morning that the company’s board of directors approved the grant of inducement stock options to purchase 64,000 common shares for two new employees.
Salix Pharmaceuticals (SLXP):
It looks like Salix Pharma is going to be dragged into court over alleged kidney damage from the use of OsmoPrep. OsmoPrep is a drug that is used to clean out the intestines in preparation for colonoscopies. The product already has a black-box warning attached to it for suspected serious kidney damage and a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy attached to it.
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