I don't know how the board can do their fiduciary duty and if they get a $30 billion offer they don't then go out and shop the company and if $30 billion is still the highest offer they would have a hard time arguing they did their proper fiduciary duty and don't sell it. They are bound by these duties to do what is best for shareholders.
To get a guaranteed 4-5 times return to shareholders requires an incredibly high level of burden to turn down. If they turn it down, when word gets out, they will be sued for not doing their fiduciary duty, which means they have to show third party analyses that the deal was not fair, despite the fact they shopped it to 9 other BP's that refused to pay that price.
I think there is a disconnect here between people looking at a huge "potential" market and the board of directors having to do what they can in doing their fiduciary duty. If they turn it down and 2 years from now sales are only 2 billion or peak sales end up 5 billion because another competing drug had success, FDA limited label to certain trig levels, generics were able to get through patents or the government in order to control drug prices allows generics on all drugs earlier and generics start in 2025, whatever it is, the board members would all be sued and lose, and yes they have insurance for that but board members don't want to deal with lawsuits of that ilk.
Board member ages: 69,59,69,67,56,77,58(Thero)
Management Age: 58,51,54,48,56
And have you seen what Thero, Kennedy, Ketchum and Kalb get for change of control?
Everyone should read the annual report risks, yes they can be low % chances but they are necessary reading because no business is guaranteed success, for example:
Other drug companies may challenge the validity, enforceability, or both of our patents and seek to design its products around our issued patent claims and gain marketing approval for generic versions of Vascepa or branded competitive products based on new clinical studies. The pharmaceutical industry is highly competitive and many of our competitors have greater experience and resources than we have. Any such competition could undermine sales, marketing and collaboration efforts for Vascepa, and thus reduce, perhaps materially, the revenue potential for Vascepa. Even if we are successful in enforcing our issued patents, we may incur substantial costs and divert management’s time and attention in pursuing these proceedings, which could have a material adverse effect on us. Patent litigation is costly and time consuming, and we may not have sufficient resources to bring these actions to a successful conclusion.
I think if they get such an offer not accepting it seems to go against everything the boards role and its fiduciary duty is designed for. If they really fear there is such gigantic upside they have to turn it down they could add milestone payments for those extremely high levels.
