Amarin Corp Plc (AMRN)

[Pharmacydude]

One
“they lowered their margin to get exclusivity. Is that good? Personally I believe it's a no brainer and can't understand why it's taking so long to put that strategy to work with all US suppliers.”

One reason MIGHT be that if Amarin lowered their price in the US too early it would have adversely affected what they could charge in the EU and ROW. It’s a much harder sell to EU to say they charge $100/bottle in the US but want EU to pay $200/bottle. There are a number of rules/laws in other countries that use base prices in other countries to limit what a company can charge in their jurisdiction.

The original agreement with the UK was somewhere around 200/bottle. The blatantly biased NICE report makes it clear the UK wants to renegotiate that price. From what was posted earlier it would appear the “no benefit” label is used to drop the price another 25% or so to suddenly realize there is a benefit. It’s the same thing going on with CADTH in Canada. We have now exceeded the standard 18-24 months post approval for government coverage and I’m sure this is due to pricing negotiations and the recent drop in price in both the US and Canada. 6 months ago Canadian cash paying customers were charged over $300/bottle. Since December that has dropped to $150/bottle. CADTH has certainly taken notice of this and is using it to pressure HLS to drop their earlier price.

IMO, once we get solid commitments on reimbursement for the top 5 countries in the EU we will start to see Amarin get much more aggressive & price competitive vs the generics in the US.

Since realizing R-IT patents had no enforceable value in the US Amarin has had to walk a fine line between short term script growth in the US at a lower price vs long term revenues in the EU. It appears they have started sacrificing long term revenue to solidify/salvage the US market. Deals last year with KP and now CVS is going to cost them in long term EU revenue.