June 4, 2010 (FinancialWire) — Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARNA) said that it has entered into an agreement with Deerfield Management, a healthcare investment organization, to provide Arena with around $35.5 million through an equity investment.

Under the terms of the financing, Arena will receive gross proceeds of around $35.5 million from the sale of 11 million shares of its common stock to Deerfield at a price of $3.23 per share.

In addition, the exercise price of 16.2 million of the 28 million outstanding warrants to purchase common stock that Deerfield previously received in connection with a June 2009 loan to Arena will be reduced from $5.42 to $3.45 per share.

The 16.2 million warrants cannot be exercised for six months from the closing of this financing, which is subject to customary closing conditions.

Jack Lief, Arena's CEO, said, "We are pleased that Deerfield continues to support our efforts as we seek to obtain FDA approval of lorcaserin."

Lief said that Arena wishes to establish an agreement with a pharmaceutical company to commercialize lorcaserin, and that the funding puts it in a stronger financial position as the company continues to pursue this goal and progress towards lorcaserin's Advisory Committee meeting and PDUFA date.

California-based Arena is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing oral drugs that target G protein-coupled receptors, an class of validated drug targets, in the major therapeutic areas of cardiovascular, central nervous system, inflammatory and metabolic diseases.

Arena's most advanced drug candidate, lorcaserin, is intended for weight management, including weight loss and maintenance of weight loss, and has completed a Phase 3 clinical trial program. Arena has filed an NDA for lorcaserin, and the FDA has assigned a PDUFA date of October 22 for review of the application.

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