Amarin Corp Plc (AMRN)

[JRoon71]

RMB, I will preface it by saying I only *think* this is what they are trying to do, for two reasons:

(1) They've already done it, other than in the US market. The entire rest of the world has been partnered out for royalties. So it just seems logical for them to finish the job and partner in the US. Otherwise, I'm not sure how attractive the company looks to a buyer anyway, if you essentially only control one market (albeit the largest). And they are definitely NOT going to build out a sales team again. This basically leaves two options: sell the company (so that somebody can start selling in the US), or partner with someone else that can sell for us.

(2) This is exactly what they have done the past 8 years at Innoviva, and it appears that they have no intention of selling their shares over there.

So, my belief is that they do turn the US market into a royalty stream with a partner. And I also believe that they will use the existing cash the same way they have used it at Innoviva - as an incubator for new startups. This is what they are doing at Innoviva, and what they have been doing at Amarin appears to be following that same playbook. I also believe that there's a chance they try to merge INVA and AMRN. This gives them a larger single-company footprint, and more economies of scale (ie. combined overhead).

I have no opinion on when any of this potentially happens. The two big wildcards are the lawsuit and the new formulation. And I'm not sure how either of those impact their overall decision-making and timing.

I also should say (before I get flamed) that I don't think this is terrible. I believe that Sarissa is going to choose the path that results in the greatest ROI. So if they choose not to sell the company to a BP right now, it's because they do not believe they can get adequate value for it. They are VERY patient investors, and they are not nearly as anxious to sell as many people seem to think. They are more interested in maximizing the value of the company.