2 February 2012 - Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:ARNA) said on Wednesday that a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee will meet in the second quarter of the year to consider the company's resubmitted application for weight-loss drug lorcaserin.

In 2010, the FDA called on Arena to provide multiple sets of new data about lorcaserin, and the company submitted last month its response to two remaining FDA concerns, precisely the relation between mammary tumours and a particular hormone in rats, and deeper understanding about the drug's activity at three serotonin receptor subtypes.

In 2010, the FDA took notice of the fact that lorcaserin met one of its effectiveness standards very narrowly.