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Arena (ARNA) Posts Narrower-Than-Expected Q4 Loss, Shares Up

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San Diego, CA-based Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company whose only approved product is obesity treatment, Belviq (lorcaserin). It is approved in United States for use as an adjunct to a reduced-calorie diet and increased physical activity for chronic weight management in adult patients.

Arena has collaboration agreements for Belviq with several companies including Eisai (most territories across the world), Ildong (South Korea), CY Biotech (Taiwan) and Teva (Israel). Arena launched Belviq XR, a once-daily, extended-release formulation of Belviq, in October 2016.

Arena’s track record has been mixed with the company beating expectations in two of the past four quarters and missing in the other two. Overall, the company has posted an average positive surprise of 63.39%.

Currently, Arena has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), but that could definitely change following the company’s earnings report which was just released. We have highlighted some of the key stats from this just-revealed announcement below:

Earnings: Arena posted narrower-than-expected loss in the fourth quarter of 2017. Our consensus called for a loss of 65 cents per share, and the company reported a loss of 36 cents per share. However, the company reported earnings of $2.02 per share in the year ago quarter.

Revenues: Arena posted revenues of $15.4 million beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $4 million. However, revenue decreased 77.7% year over year.

Key Stats: R&D expenses significantly increased 78% from the year-ago level to $20.7 million. Selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses were also up 18.6% to $8.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2017.

Pipeline Update: The most advanced candidate in Arena’s pipeline is ralinepag, being developed for treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). In October 2017, the company presented positive results from a phase II study, evaluating ralinepag for PAH. The company expects to start phase III study on the candidate in the second half of 2018 for the given indication.

Share Price Impact: Shares are up almost 7% in pre-market trading.

Check back later for our full write up on ARNA earnings report later!

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