. Second-gen take on Acomplia significantly trims body weight

Scientists working on a new obesity drug program at Denmark's 7TM Pharma say they've seen dramatic weight loss in rodents treated with a second-generation cannabinoid receptor blocker. And they say that they could be on to a successor to rimonabant, also known as Acomplia, which was yanked from the European market two years ago due to the troubling risk of psychiatric side effects.

This new drug, TM38837, is designed to work in human tissue and organs, but not the brain. This is where rimonabant ran into trouble--a number of patients on Acomplia complained of severe depression and suicidal thoughts. In fact, the experimental therapy looks just as effective as rimonabant in trimming weight. In mice, the drug was associated with a 22 percent to 26 percent drop in body weight compared with a placebo. Furthermore, drug-treated rats had 14 percent lower body weights than placebo-treated rats, PhysOrg reports.