Amarin Corp Plc (AMRN)

[BaaBaa45]

Extract from transcript of yesterday's chat with my emphasis added at the end. Begs the question what the hell are AZN doing with Epanova? Doesn't make a great deal of sense for them unless they were to have both drugs in their stable.

Joel Beatty

Got it. And with Epanova by AstraZeneca is in outcomes trials as well, they could be reading out in about a year or so. What are your thoughts on how that drug compares to Vascepa?
John Thero

So, in any big market, and this is by account a big market, very few drugs out there that are addressing one in four adults, it's not surprising to have competition. We think that the unique single core molecule that we have in our drug and its effect of not raising LDL and its strong tolerability profile positions us well.

But I hope they succeed. They're talking about results in 2020. They're studying a slightly different patient population. They're studying patients with elevated triglycerides and low HDL. Elevated triglycerides, they defined as 200 above. We had a 38% relative risk reduction in that higher risk patient population.

I think, in many regards, having two players ends up expanding a market faster. So, I hope they succeed. Their product does include DHA in it. Their earlier studies, and all studies of products including DHA, shows that it increases LDL. And, historically, products that have included DHA have failed in cardiovascular outcome studies. But they’ve picked a high enough risk population that they may succeed.

If they do succeed, we do believe that they infringe certain of our patents which we will evaluate at that point in time and we do think that we’ll compete with them on the basis of efficacy, of tolerability, and not raising LDL. But that's still ways away.