Giant drug-maker Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc. on Tuesday confirmed that it has submitted an application with the US Food and Drug Administration to gain approval for the marketing of its experimental drug for weight loss, lorcaserin.

As shared by the firm back in August, a trial of 4,000 patients had revealed that 47.2% of them on lorcaserin managed to lose 5% or more of their total body weight over a year, as compared to the 25% of patients who had been assigned a placebo.

Also, the second late-stage study of the drug had managed to reveal that patients on the weight loss medicine twice a day for about a year managed to shed, on an average, about 5.9% of their total body weight.

With the aim to be the first pharmaceutical company to develop a new weight loss drug in over a decade, Arena is competing with rivals Vivus Inand and Orexigen Therapeutics Inc.

After extensive and long term studies, Arena has managed to reveal that "lorcaserin consistently produced significant weight loss with excellent safety and tolerability".

Post the announcement, shares of the company surged by 3.7% to $3.88 in pre-market trading.