Arena Pharmaceuticals Cuts 35% of its Workforce

Arena Pharmaceuticals will cut its U.S. workforce by approximately 80 employees or 35%, which Arena estimates will reduce annualized cash expenditures for personnel by approximately $11 million. In addition, Arena plans to implement more cuts at its Swiss manufacturing facility, Arena Pharmaceuticals GmbH.

The company says the cuts come as it shifts its focus on the advancement of its research and development priorities.

Arena says it intends to focus on its key strengths by concentrating near-term activities and resources primarily on advancing its APD334 program, including the ongoing Phase 2 clinical trial for ulcerative colitis, and potentially exploring additional indications beyond inflammatory bowel disease through small pilot studies.

The company is also advancing its ralinepag (formerly known as APD811) program, including its ongoing Phase 2 clinical trial for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), and potentially exploring enhanced efficacy with other classes of PAH agents; its APD371 program through a Phase 1 multiple-ascending dose clinical trial; supporting Eisai to advance the MACE, diabetes conversion, MACE plus and other endpoints of the ongoing BELVIQ (lorcaserin HCl) cardiovascular outcomes trial (CVOT), also known as the CAMELLIA study, and seeking potential regulatory approval for BELVIQ XR, a once-daily formulation of BELVIQ; maintaining its core research function to discover and advance drug candidates; assessing strategic collaboration opportunities for certain clinical- and earlier-stage programs; and meeting manufacturing obligations to collaborators and others, while reducing commercial manufacturing overhead to achieve potential savings.

“This initiative supports our strong desire to create a more streamlined and efficient organization focused on key priorities designed to add both near- and long-term value to the organization,” said Harry Hixson, Jr., Arena’s interim chief executive officer. “We believe our clinical-stage pipeline, including the MACE plus portion of the CAMELLIA study, offer tremendous promise, and we are committed to generating clinical data supporting meaningful differentiation of our compounds from currently available therapies. We thank all of our employees who were affected by today’s announcement for their contributions to Arena.”

As part of this initiative, Arena does not intend to currently advance certain lifecycle management programs for lorcaserin, including evaluating lorcaserin in combination with phentermine and for smoking cessation.