I'm not willing to increase my chance of getting killed by medicine on behalf of someone else's profit margin. They have a big, powerful lobby, they should suggest process improvements. And make some on their end, as well, nobody's charging them billions in fees, they spend that money on the typical big-company waste in the process of complying with those regs.
At this point in time the FDA has incredibly high standards of safety for weight loss drugs and not without reason. But what are the costs of the 40% of obese Americans who will get diabetes, cardiovascular disease, etc, etc?
EDIT: I am trying to say that while obesity is 'bad', giving them a drug that adds to their risk levels is not a solution.
If you are still pro your position, bear in mind that you are now throwing dice and hoping that: (people who improve) >= (people who suffer + nothing happens).
Are you qualified to play dice with peoples lives?
Mind you, this drug is already approved for use in humans. The FDA made the call that preventing cleft palates in babies (mind you the company offered to restrict the label to "non-child bearing women") was more important that reducing levels of obesity.
The FDA "suggested" the company run a 10,000 person clinical trial (estimated at $100M) to prove it didn't.
From what it looks like the FDA is going to renew qnexa by April 2012.
And we have already gone past "letting the at risk group decide for themselves." it's hard to be succinct and explain the many reasons why we dont use that particular system when it comes to medication.
The communication to the patient should be fully transparent, and it should be up to the patient to choose what they want to do, not just regulators.
As you mentioned the patent cliff is looming for a number of big pharma actors, and what this is going to result in is less innovation and more strategic moves to other "easier" markets such as generics or OTC drugs. This is just plain bad for everyone in the end.