Seeking Alpha: Forget Arena Vs. Vivus - Zafgen May Be The Ultimate Winner

As an investor and writer with no financial stake in any of the companies involved, watching the message board battles between Arena (ARNA) and Vivus (VVUS) shareholders is good theater. Both companies have FDA-approved drugs on the market that are effective in helping obese people lose weight, but neither Arena's Belviq nor Vivus's Qsymia look like "the one obesity drug to rule them all". Belviq is hampered by modest efficacy, while Qsymia can produce scary side effects and has a more limited marketing effort behind it.

Quite frankly, though, the Arena-versus-Vivus battle may ultimately be just the undercard for the real battle. A private biotech company by the name of Zafgen has drug in clinical testing that has shown very impressive efficacy and solid safety, and happens to work by a completely different mechanism than biotech and pharma companies have pursued so far. While Arena and Vivus likely have at least three years before Zafgen's drug becomes a clear and present danger, investors in those companies may want to consider the risk that their parties could be brought to a premature end if Zafgen can continue to produce such strong data.

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Forget Arena Vs. Vivus - Zafgen May Be The Ultimate Winner