Amarin Corp Plc (AMRN)

[Hamoa]

Bench trial judges can issue bad decisions. That’s why we have appeals courts. A three judge appellate panel will ensure that the decision on appeal is not subject to the imperfections of a single judge’s view. Assuming Amarin doesn’t get very unlucky with regard to the composition of the appellate panel, a reversal of the district court’s decision is very possible. I would guess they’re moving forward with the assumption that the appeals court will find the district court’s decision both procedurally incorrect and flawed with respect to its discounting of the significance of the secondary considerations. In doing so, the court would effectively be reaffirming the validity findings of the USPTO that were based on the power of the secondary considerations. Even if you accept Kobayashi and eliminate the “unexpected results” from the USPTO’s secondary considerations, the addition of undisputed commercial success to the considerations more than compensates for the possible removal of unexpected results.

Going forward from here, I would expect that Amarin will stick to the playbook and proceed with the planned full scale roll-out of Vascepa (DTC, etc). They’ll slap an injunction on any attempted generic launch in the meantime. Sales will continue to track higher, and a European deal is probably likely later in the year when terms will be better.
They’ve got lots of cash, no debt, strong and growing demand, a 10+ year lock on a multi-billion dollar European market, with the rest of world to follow. Even with the temporary setback in round 1 of the US patent litigation, Amarin remains in an enviable position.