Hi Raf,

I worked for a multi-billion dollar biotech company as a business development manager and later lead a division of the company. You are correct in much of my compensation was in restricted stock options with a time limited vesting period during which I had to purchase them. If I didn't purchase them they returned to the company. I appears many people do not understand large company compensation plans. My salary was > north of $160K, my options were much more.. That also kicked in tax payments on purchasing them which I automatically paid, which many people see as insiders selling shares.

I enjoy your contributions to the discussions on this board

rod

Hspooner,

Absolutely correct. Our VP of sales used Salesforce.com to track every salespersons calls and appointments. Bonuses and trip awards were all recorded monthly

So true. I worked in biotech industry for 30yr selling into med research centers and research labs. Unless you have a relationship with the researcher, or Dr, you get little access to showcase new products unless they saw it in a medical journal, or other scientific journal and invited you to see them

Kiwi, thank you for the link, much appreciated.

If you go to the Gr8bio.com website, the password for success stories tab is GR8Korium, case sensitive, it shows results from start of treatment to end of treatment, for DFU's, venous, and pressure wounds, along with graphic pics

Best, NPV

General question to the board:

Why the fascination from a marketing perspective whether Amarin should focus on the highest prescribing cardiologists and not include PCP's? Marketing, whether pharmaceuticals, biologics or biotech (my background) is a numbers game no matter how we slice it. There are 10x as many PCPs as cardios, and even if a CVD patient sees their cardio 10x as often as a PCP they can't get 10x the # of prescriptions, they each can only get 1 at a time.

From a pure marketing perspective, (my 2nd bkgrnd) if Amarin can get 10% - 20 of PCPs to prescribe at anywhere the rate of a cardio we get as many and more patients covered than solely focusing on cardios. Our FDA approved label allows marketing for high triglycerides not for R-I, and until we get label expansion sales and marketing will be handcuffed. Marketing is all numbers anyway we slice it.


I suggest patience our time will come if the science is as good we believe.

As an example - My company Gr8bio has an FDA registered product for diabetic foot ulcers, pressure wounds, venous ulcers,... with 3 peer reviewed clinical trials showing efficacy and healing 35-50% faster at 1/3 cost or less of the current STOC. DFU's are horrible, and there a 1.4M people in the US with them. But I can't make any claims about the efficacy because I can't put it on my label unless I can run additional trials for the FDA. So for my company it's all "soft" marketing which is what Amarin is doing until label expansion.

Again, patience, 3mo, 6mo it's only time if Vascepa is what we believe it to be.

JMHO
NPV

Kiwi, thanks for the feedback from your personal experience as a CAD patient. I am 63 and as yet do not fall into that category, luck of the draw or genetics whose to say. I have read with interest many of your posts over the years and appreciate your contributions to my education as I'm sure many can agree. I am a biochemist/molecular biologist by training and worked in biotech for ~30yrs, mostly in business development after leaving research.

My take was from strictly a numbers game marketing wise, given the currently approved label for treating high triglycerides, not that you or other CAD patients don't see a cardiologist much more frequently, marketing is a numbers game, you can only get so many Rxs no matter how often you interact with your cardio, you are 1 patient. Until label expansion Amarin's sales marketing is limited by what they can and cannot promote given their agreement with the FDA and 1st Amendment win. That said, I am hopeful for a rapid submission of their sNDA and subsequent expansion of their label and increasing script sales.

Best
npv

The question of who sales should focus on, cardiologists first or primary care physicians is a good question. My rudimentary research indicates there are about 8-10x more PCP's than cardiologists. Just from that number even if a cardiologist writes 10x more scripts than a PCP it basically breaks even. Let's also realize many more patients see their PCP for general physical and metabolic screening ( LDL, cholesterol etc) before ever being referred to a cardiologist. Even with RI results our current label is for high triglycerides which may be part of their rationale for focusing on PCPs understandable for the time being..until label expansion and update on cardiology healthcare guidelines Just takes longer than most retail investors are willing to wait through and many longs got in late after the initial run up and have a higher cost basis.

Institutional investors do not react with the panic of retail investors on the daily ups/downs in the market.

I was a VP in a closely held biotech company in Austin, Tx we were about $50M in sales, and were sold to Applied Biosystems for $275M in 2006, and I did not know about the sale until my shares were exercised. We were subsequently sold 2 more times ending up a Thermo Scientific acquisition, Thermo is a multiB yr in sales corp.

Retail investors and many insiders will never know about negotiations or a sale/merger until it happens

MrMainST: Clearly a sarcastic comment. I've worked within 2 multiB corps in biotech. Our CEOs and CFOs never worried about retail investors comments on boards like iHub. They were focused on driving the company forward with a long term strategy, vision, that many retail investors who are focused on short term gains, like you and I might be, may be disappointed with short term. Social media, ie. twitter, facebook etc. for a Rx drug is not going to reach the masses you might like or suggest

Thank you PSea! I have been in biotech and as an investor in biopharma stocks for >30yr. The day to day drama I see on these boards could be their own novella....Yes biopharma stocks go up quickly and down because most have no underlying sales for forecasting growth. Until that is in place it is a crap shoot, ie. speculating or gambling at it's best. Good Luck

Invest83838

While I did not work in the pharmaceutical industry, I did work in biotech for 30yrs, and for 2 different B corps, and led a division that developed and licensed animal diagnostic tests, and filed for approval from the FDA-USDA, the amount of paperwork to file is amazing, and it has to be in a certain format. I also worked with a start up trying to make the path to submission and compliance with FDA standard submissions much easier and streamlined. Believe me from R&D, to Production, Quality control, showing batch to batch control, documenting everything is just "right" takes much more time than most retail investors assume.

Excellent Post! I have worked at 2 multi-billion biotech corps and with many startups as a mentor at University of Texas, and even if they are not in the pharmaceutical category and are so much smaller, all these buzz phrases are in every entrepreneurial pitch.

Thero's job is to manage the company, all it's financials and operations, not to manage or manipulate stock prices. If you bought 5yr ago you have made money. Yes, shares have gone down 50% from their high, but perhaps they didn't have a technical reason to be as high as they were but for speculation of ever higher financial returns.. Most companies are valued on the return on investment they can give investors, not on what speculators want to see.

Read the financials, aside from speculation why should the stock have been in the 20's. They do not demonstrate Amazon's or Apple's ability to show the return in growth, Amarin does not show this, not yet.

Yes, I am a share holder since 2012

There are a large number of people on here that have no idea of what it takes to run a multi-billion $ corp. I have worked at Life Technologies, acquired by Thermo Fisher Scientific ($91B mkt cap) running a division for development of USDA approved tests for food animal diseases, think e. coli or salmonella.
If you think a submission to USDA is tough, FDA is worse.

I can assure you CEOs of billion $ corps do not read our message boards. I have been in corp yearly strategy meetings and NONE included..(OMG our stock is down today what should we do discussions). The companies plan 1 yr and 5yr or even 10yr strategies, none tied to your, or my retail investments.

I have been in biotech since 1981 graduating from UW-Madison.. And was a student under Dr TC Hall, we published first paper on transgenic plants trying to improve nutritional content vs insect or pesticide resistance, i.e. Monsanto. I invest and buy what I know. If you are simply a speculator in stocks, and only want to see your PPS to go up, (from ~$3 to $20 and then back down) you have already done well. If you got in late (~$20s) then sell or hold.. It's all up to you and your individual investment strategy.


rk
Know what your buy, buy what you know. -- Peter Lynch, Fidelity