This is a blog for the Mental Health Policy Class at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work.

October 22, 2009

Medicine’s Elusive Goal: A Safe Weight-Loss Drug

Americans spent an estimated $59 billion last year fighting fat — on weight-loss programs, special foods, low-calorie soft drinks, appetite suppressants, gym memberships, diet books, exercise videos, even stomach-clamping surgery.

But less than 1 percent of that sum, as estimated by the research firm Marketdata Enterprises, was spent on prescription drugs. Despite years of research effort — and haunted by diet drugs that proved dangerous, like fen-phen in the 1990s — the pharmaceutical industry has not made meaningful progress in combating obesity, one of the nation’s biggest and costliest health problems.
Now, though, three small California companies hope to succeed where many bigger players have failed. The companies — Arena Pharmaceuticals, Orexigen Therapeutics and Vivus — plan to apply in the coming months for regulatory approval of anti-obesity drugs that could reach the market in late 2010 or in 2011.

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