Our Focus
Arena is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing oral drugs that target G protein-coupled receptors, an important class of validated drug targets, in four major therapeutic areas: cardiovascular, central nervous system, inflammatory and metabolic diseases. Our most advanced drug candidate, lorcaserin, is intended for weight management, including weight loss and maintenance of weight loss.
Our Technologies
We focus our research and development efforts on GPCRs because they are a validated class of drug targets that mediate the majority of cell-to-cell communication in humans. A high percentage of today's prescription drugs target one or more GPCRs, and we believe that approved GPCR-based drugs target only about one-third of the known non-sensory GPCRs. Selective targeting of specific GPCRs is intended to increase the likelihood of the desired pharmacology and minimize the risk of "off target" effects.
Our GPCR technologies provide the capability to find drugs that target both well-understood receptors with known function and promising novel GPCRs where the function is not yet understood. We believe our GPCR-focused technologies and integrated discovery and development capabilities will allow us to continue to build our pipeline of novel and selective drug candidates.
Our Development Pipeline
In December 2009, we submitted a New Drug Application (NDA) to the FDA for our lead drug candidate, lorcaserin, which is intended for weight management, including weight loss and maintenance of weight loss. Positive results from our pivotal program, BLOOM and BLOSSOM, were presented at the 69th Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association and the 27th Annual Scientific Meeting of The Obesity Society, and are the basis of the lorcaserin NDA submission. In addition to the pivotal program, we are evaluating lorcaserin in obese and overweight patients with type 2 diabetes in our BLOOM-DM trial. BLOOM-DM is planned as a supplement to the NDA.
In addition to lorcaserin, our other development programs include APD791, APD916 and APD811, all of which are oral drug candidates that we internally discovered. We are investigating APD791, a selective inverse agonist of the serotonin 2A receptor, for the treatment of arterial thrombosis and other related conditions. APD791 has completed Phase 1a and Phase 1b clinical trials. We have filed an IND for APD916, our histamine H3 inverse agonist for the treatment of narcolepsy and cataplexy. APD811, a selective agonist of the prostanoid IP receptor, is our lead drug candidate for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension and is currently in preclinical development.
In addition to internal programs, we have a clinical-stage partnership with Ortho-McNeil-Janssen for the treatment of type 2 diabetes and other disorders by targeting GPR119.
Our Strategy
The key elements of our scientific and business strategy are to:
- Advance our lead candidates. We intend to selectively advance our drug candidates, with a partner or independently, through clinical development and, if successful, to commercialization.
- Discover and develop additional drug candidates targeting GPCRs. We intend to continue to discover and develop oral, small molecule compounds for GPCRs identified or validated through our research efforts.
- Focus on attractive market opportunities. Obesity, diabetes, atherosclerosis and arterial thrombosis each represent large market opportunities. We intend to continue to focus on these and other markets with attractive commercial potential.
- Recognize significant economic value for our drug candidates. We intend to maximize the value of our drug candidates through both independent development and licensing and other partnership opportunities.
- Continue to build our capabilities. To capitalize on our discoveries, we plan to selectively improve and develop our capabilities as our drug candidates enter into, and move through, clinical trials and to commercialization.
- Maintain strong discovery research capabilities. Our technologies, our drug discovery infrastructure and the integrated approach to research used by our scientists have allowed us to identify a number of GPCR targets and novel compounds. We believe these and other discoveries will fuel our pipeline for future developments.
(This page was last updated: January 5, 2010. Additional information regarding Arena is available in its SEC filings.)
