text_1: Drug trial success a boost for Arena
text_2: This was a story about a possible new medication in the pipeline that may enable people to lose weight. It did not include the information needed to understand the relative strength of the study reported about and did not quantify in absolute terms (number of pounds lost)  the benefit that might be attained with the use of this medication. It was an interesting piece in that it made an attempt to contrast this medication with one that was withdrawn from the market. However, in light of this comparison, the story should have explained something about the time frame of the current study, and how that compared with the period of time that was needed for the problems with the drug that was withdrawn from the market to be observed. It should have also mentioned that the current trials with the new medication specifically exclude people with type of heart issue that was seen to be problematic with the withdrawn drug. The bottom line is that while the company may be optimistic that this drug will not result in harms, there are not yet sufficient data available to determine whether this is the case. It would have been useful to readers had the story made this clear. Finally, this was a San Diego paper reporting on “mid-stage” trial results on a San Diego company’s product. It is doubtful that the paper would report on such results from another company in another location. Applying that “business news” approach to health care product news is often problematic. It gives local readers a skewed picture of the research landscape and may give undue weight to the local idea.