PHARMACEUTICALS FDA panel endorses weight-loss drug
Arena Pharmaceuticals jumped the most ever Friday after the company's weight-loss pill gained the backing of an advisory panel, putting two obesity drugs in line for U.S. approval almost two years after regulators rejected them as too risky.
Arena rose 74 percent to $6.36 at 4 p.m. New York time, the biggest increase since the company's shares began trading publicly in July 2000.
Food and Drug Administration advisers voted 18-4 Thursday that the benefits of Arena's pill, known as lorcaserin, outweigh the risks. The FDA is scheduled to decide by June 27 on lorcaserin, and doesn't have to follow the panel's advice.
Arena, based in San Diego, is competing with Mountain View's Vivus Inc. and Orexigen Therapeutics, based in La Jolla, to introduce the first weight-loss drug since Roche Holding AG's Xenical in 1999. The FDA previously turned down all three drugs. Panel members raised concerns that lorcaserin provides a modest benefit while potentially raising heart risks.
A federal appeals court has turned down a Freedom of Information Act request to disclose National Security Agency records about the 2010 cyberattack on Google users in China.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center, which focuses on privacy and civil liberties, sought communications between Google and the NSA, which conducts worldwide electronic surveillance and protects the U.S. government from such spying. But the NSA refused to confirm or deny whether it had any relationship with Google. The NSA argued that doing so could make U.S. government information systems vulnerable to attack.
A federal district court judge sided with the NSA last year, and on Friday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the ruling.
Nordstrom on Friday dropped the most in more than eight months after the department-store chain posted quarterly profit that trailed analysts' estimates, hurt by expenses for e-commerce investments.
Nordstrom fell 4.8 percent to $50.96 in New York, the most since Aug. 18. The shares have gained 2.5 percent this year.
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FDA panel backs Arena weight-loss pill lorcaserin
