With a very limited SBIR presence - a single NIH award in 2000 - in December 2021, Arena Pharmaceutical (NASDAQ:ARNA) was acquired by Pfizer for a reported $6.7M. The firm had functioned as a clinical-stage biotech focused on cardiovascular, central nervous system, inflammatory and metabolic diseases. With their leading drug candidate - lorcaserin hydrochloride - receiving positive data from a clinical trial, the firm has developed CART, a new technology which the Company uses to identify new drug candidates more efficiently than traditional drug discovery techniques. Using CART, the Company has discovered new drug candidates in the areas of obesity and schizophrenia. Based on Arena Pharmaceutical's success using CART, the Company has established collaborative drug discovery programs with a number of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. The Company uses CART to discover chemical compounds that act on an important class of drug targets, which scientists call lG protein-coupled receptors. The firm's CART technology discovers drugs without first identifying ligands, the molecules that bind to a drug's potential target and trigger a biological response. The technology mimics the behavior of ligands to identify chemical compounds that alter biological responses, facilitating faster drug discovery. Arena's focus is on treatments for metabolic, cardiovascular, and central nervous system diseases. Lead drug candidate lorcaserin could help obese people control body fat. Arena also earnsed most of its revenues from R&D partnerships, including one with Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical to develop a treatment for type 2 diabetes.
