Arena Pharmaceuticals and Eisai have expanded their Belviq (lorcaserin HCl) marketing and supply agreement. The expanded agreement provides Eisai with exclusive worldwide commercialization rights, except in South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Israel and New Zealand. A previous agreement granted Eisai rights to commercialize Belviq in most of North and South America. 
 
Arena will receive an upfront payment of $60 million and is eligible to receive a total of $176.5 million in regulatory and development milestones. Arena will continue to sell Belviq to Eisai for commercialization in the U.S. and in the other territories in North and South America for 31.5% and 30.8% of Eisai’s sales, respectively. For the territories added under the amended agreement, the purchase price starts at 27.5% of Eisai’s sales in Europe, China and Japan, and at 30.8% of Eisai’s sales in all other territories. Arena is also eligible to receive a total of $1.56 billion in one-time purchase price adjustment payments based on sales in the territories covered by the agreement.
 
“This new agreement not only expands Eisai’s territory for commercialization, but it also prioritizes our global development program for BELVIQ,” said Jack Lief, Arena’s president and chief executive officer. “Expanding our collaboration with Eisai provides the potential to make BELVIQ available to physicians and patients worldwide for weight management and creates a powerful platform to investigate this novel compound for possible new indications by leveraging our combined drug development and regulatory expertise.”
 
In addition to pursuing regulatory approval for weight management in the expanded territory, Eisai and Arena plan to investigate Belviq in new areas, such as smoking cessation, as well as the impact on diabetes and cardiovascular outcomes.