Amarin Corp Plc (AMRN)

[bfost]

A moments departure from Generic Patent discussion!

I met with my AMRN rep over lunch today. Some highlights:

1) She was just back from the Rep meeting in Texas - She was the most energized I've ever seen her - real excited to talk!
2) All 800 reps were there and it sounded like a great meeting.
3) A big emphasis at the meeting was calling Vascepa -IPE - icospent ethyl. They are moving away from anything fish oil related to differentiate itself from DS and Lovaza.
4) She says she has noted a significant uptick in RX's since the FDA decision
5) They have increased the number of reps from 1 to 11 in WI. This is significantly more than they had originally planned and this is based on the fact that WI has the #1 statin usage per capita in the country and they are deciding the number of reps in each area based on statin usage.
6) She emphasized the new guidelines state "maximally tolerated statin dosage" and that that can mean no statin if not tolerated.
7) I asked about insurance coverage and she still states many Mcare/Mcaid insurers require a PA. However, they have increased their relationship with CoverMyMeds - the Nation's Largest Electronic Platform to assist physicians in submitting a Prior Authorization Requests. They actually pay for designated employees of CMM's to handle all Vascepa prescriptions to streamline the info and process.
8) I asked about the generic lawsuit and she acted like it was a non issue - but had no particulars
9) She just added a new Physician to the areas speaker series. He is a Preventive Cardiologist who is very well respected.
10) She didn't know much about the STRENGTH trial failure so I educated her about EPA/DHA combo and to work on changing all Lovaza Rx's to V.

Overall, she was pretty pumped and glad to now have all the "tools" to do a hard sell on providers with all the data and FDA and SOC recs to back her up.