Arena Pharmaceuticals Announces First Quarter 2008 Financi...( SAN DIEGO May 7 /- Arena Pharmace...)

SAN DIEGO, May 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: ARNA) today reported financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2008.

Total revenues in the first quarter of 2008 were $2.6 million, compared to $4.9 million in the first quarter of 2007, and included $2.0 million in revenue under Arena's contract manufacturing agreement with Siegfried Ltd and $0.6 million in patent reimbursements from Arena's collaborations with Merck & Co., Inc. and Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical, Inc. Arena reported a net loss allocable to common stockholders in the first quarter of 2008 of $55.0 million, or $0.75 per share, compared to a net loss allocable to common stockholders in the first quarter of 2007 of $32.4 million, or $0.53 per share.

"In the first quarter of 2008, we purchased certain pharmaceutical manufacturing assets from Siegfried and secured Siegfried as a supplier of lorcaserin for our planned NDA submission in 2009 and for the potential partnering and commercialization of the drug candidate. Additionally, lorcaserin passed the month-12 ESMB review of echocardiographic data, APD125, our insomnia drug candidate, entered a Phase 2b trial and APD791, our drug candidate for arterial thrombosis, entered a Phase 1b trial," stated Jack Lief, Arena's President and Chief Executive Officer. "This is a productive start to the year, and we look forward to the results from our ongoing clinical trials and advancing our pipeline of innovative therapeutics."

Research and development expenses totaled $47.6 million in the first quarter of 2008, compared to $35.8 million in the first quarter of 2007. This increase in research and development expenses is primarily attributable to increased clinical development c
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