Why do baseball managers come out on the field to argue calls with the umpires when they know there is zero chance of getting the calls reversed? The answer is: they are arguing in order to influence the next call.
Teva is doing the same thing, IMO. They are trying to build a case with the investment community and with elected officials in Washington that they have been wronged by the FDA on Lovenox, hoping that this will influence the FDA’s review of MNTA’s Copaxone ANDA and reduce the probability of its being approved.
Teva’s senior executives have publicly proclaimed that the FDA will not approve generic Copaxone without making NVS/MNTA conduct full-fledged clinical trials, and his line has been repeated so many times that Teva’s corporate credibility is very much on the line.
Moreover, Teva has given investors extremely aggressive sales and earnings guidance for 2015 that cannot possibly be achieved if the FDA approves generic Copaxone.
All told, Teva has a very big stake in what the FDA ends up doing with generic Copaxone. Under such circumstances, is it any wonder that Teva is behaving like a baseball manager with respect to Lovenox?
“The efficient-market hypothesis may be
the foremost piece of B.S. ever promulgated
in any area of human knowledge!”
