A New Approach to Marketing Diet Drugs

PREV 2 of 2

In its Food and Drug Administration application, Vivus notes that Qnexa should be viewed as a medicine to thwart diseases such as hypertension and diabetes rather than a cosmetic treatment.

"These are large markets being treated with multiple medicines," says Tam, a former researcher. "Our view of the world is it's actually important to treat the cause."

About 99 percent of type-2 diabetes cases are caused by obesity, he says.

Vivus lost $21 million in the third quarter and had about $227 million in cash as of September 30. It lost $41 million through nine months of this year. The company also is studying an impotence drug that works quicker than Viagra, but Qnexa is Vivus' main focus now.

Arena and Orexigen also lost money: Orexigen lost $51 million through nine months this year, while Arena lost $123 million. So they, too, are betting big on their weight-loss drugs. A day after Arena announced its Lorcaserin application last week, Merck & Co. pulled out of a collaboration with the company for an experimental heart drug.

After saying it was "a pleasure to work with Merck," Arena CEO Jack Lief said he would focus his attention on getting Lorcaserin approved.

Lorcaserin works similar to fenfluramine, the fen in Wyeth's fen-phen diet-drug combination that was pulled from the market in 1997 after it was linked to heart damage and a lung disorder. Arena says the drug won't have the side effects of fen-phen. And, like Qnexa, its target market is people at risk of obesity-related disease.

Fen-phen, prescribed to about 6 million people before it was pulled, was a hit drug partly driven by women's desire to lose weight in a supermodel-obsessed society. Fast-forward to today: Biggest Loser is one of the most popular shows on TV.

PREV 2 of 2