July 7, 2010 (FinancialWire) — Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARNA) said that Eisai Inc. (OTC: ESALF) will market lorcaserin for obesity and weight management in the United States following U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval under the terms of a marketing and supply agreement between Arena Pharmaceuticals GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Eisai.

Lorcaserin, which Arena discovered and has developed for weight management, is intended for obese patients as well as overweight patients who have at least one weight-related co-morbid condition.

As part of the marketing and supply agreement, Arena has granted Eisai exclusive U.S. rights to commercialize lorcaserin. Arena will manufacture lorcaserin at its facility in Switzerland and sell finished product to Eisai for marketing and distribution in the United States.

Lorcaserin is a novel single agent that represents the first in a new class of selective serotonin 2C receptor agonists. The serotonin 2C receptor is expressed in the brain, including the hypothalamus, an area involved in the control of appetite and metabolism. Stimulation of this receptor is associated with feeding behavior and satiety.

Arena has patents that cover lorcaserin in the United States and other jurisdictions, which in most cases are capable of continuing into 2023 without taking into account any patent term extensions or other exclusivity Arena might obtain.

Eisai, Inc. is the U.S. based operation of Tokyo-based Esai Co. Ltd. The company is a pharmaceutical firm that began marketing its first product in the United States in 1997 and has grown to become a fully integrated pharmaceutical business with fiscal year 2009 sales of around $3.9 billion. Eisai's areas of commercial focus include neurology, gastrointestinal disorders and oncology/critical care.

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

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