Misc Belviq (lorcaserin): A new (hallucinogenic phenethylamine) weight-loss drug?

[Privateer]

So Arena Pharmaceuticals has been developing this compound for a long time with the idea that it's going to be a blockbuster. It's the first new weight-loss drug approved by the FDA in something like 15 years, but that's old news. More recently relevant is that the DEA just gave it the final thumbs up for Schedule IV approval, due to its ability to provide hallucinations and habitual use. That was on May 7th, so the launch of this new drug should slip in as early as June 7th. And it should be a big launch too, owing to its "potential blockbuster" status. Point: there's gonna be a whole lot of these pills out there.

Okay but so, why should you care? Well first check out this structure:

It looks like something out of the ADD "draw random molecules" thread in the best way possible. As for pharmacology, lorcaserin is a 5-HT2C full agonist. Nice.

Oh, and of course this precious fucking nugget from the PI form:

9.2 Abuse In a human abuse potential study in recreational drug abusers, supratherapeutic oral doses of lorcaserin (40 and 60 mg) produced up to two- to six-fold increases on measures of “High”, “Good Drug Effects”, “Hallucinations” and “Sedation” compared to placebo. These responses were similar to those produced by oral administration of the positive control drugs, zolpidem (15 and 30 mg) and ketamine (100 mg). In this study, the incidence of the adverse reaction of euphoria following lorcaserin administration (40 and 60 mg; 19%) is similar to the incidence following zolpidem administration (13-16%), but less than the incidence following ketamine administration (50%). The duration of euphoria following lorcaserin administration persisted longer (> 9 hours) than that following zolpidem (1.5 hours) or ketamine (2.5 hours) administration

Anyone else find this compound promising? Feel free to move this to ADD if anyone thinks it'd be better suited there, this isn't really HR.

 

[Lady Codone]

Interesting. The name sounds familiar. The Wikipedia page says it has hallucinogenic properties and possibly causes cancer in rats (?) But it seems to lack the cardiotoxic properties of fenfluramine, which is good. Hard to imagine the gov't approving a hallucinogen for ANY reason but we'll see how it plays out.