analysts are on board with pfizer incs pfe plans to acquire arena pharmaceuticals inc arna in a deal worth 67 billion and announced monday morning pfizers stock was up 12 in premarket trading on monday while shares of arena soared 883 we view pfe as a logical partner for arna as the latter continues to progress its gastroenterology dermatology and cardiology focused platform which should benefit from the executional expertise of a large pharmaceutical company svb leerink analyst joseph schwartz told analysts in a research note pfes commercial framework can capitalize on etrasimods bestinclass potential wrote rbc capital markets kennen mackay the one thing that surprised wall street was pfizers decision to execute a deal before the upcoming readout of phase 3 clinical trial data for arenas etrasimod an experimental ulcerative colitis treatment that data is expected early next year pfizers stock has gained 434 so far this year while arenas shares are down 350 the sp 500 spx is up 254 yeartodate