This Week in Biotech: VIVUS, Inc. (VVUS), Roche Holdings Ltd-Spons Adr (RHHBY)

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The one “Debbie downer” of the sector this week was anti-obesity drug maker VIVUS, Inc. (NASDAQ:VVUS) , which received word from the European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use on Thursday that it had, again, decided to uphold its rejection of Qsvia (the European marketing name for Qsymia) for the treatment of chronic weight management and rejected VIVUS’ appeal. The EMA’s panel suggested that it would like to see how Qsvia affects the cardiovascular system in trials before recommending the drug. While not a real shock, it nonetheless reinforces what a tough road it’ll be for weight-loss management drugs to crack the European market.

The article This Week in Biotech originally appeared on Fool.com.

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