JELIS and what it was is not the point
Doctors have several options to try to reduce cardiac events. They have several options to control lipid profile.
When analyzing all the options you should, at some point, compare Lovaza to Vasepa.
Once price is not a factor it is very hard for anybody to make any argument to not switch from Lovaza to Vascepa with the already mentioned better profiles from Vascepa.
The other factor: cardiac events: several large studies have been done that show no correlation between DHA/EPA fish oil and reducing cardiac events. Of course FDA approved studies and all these other studies have differences but Lovaza cannot be used in High trig area for a reason.
Pure EPA, whatever you say of the JELIS study DOES show a benefit to cardiac event reduction and is more prominent the worse your lipid profile. Add to the science put out by AMRN on Vascepa, that is different than DHA/EPA fish oil, that changes factors that doctors think have effects on cardiac events.
When you add up all the science the preponderance of evidence suggests strongly that Vascepa will improve your lipid profile and reduce cardiac events and DHA/EPA fish oil will not. Why any good doctor would continue to prescribe Lovaza over Vascepa is simply education.
People seem to gloss over the approach of AMRN: mainly avoiding the vast majority of PCP's and concentrating on cardio specialists. Makes sense with small sales force and just the Marine indication but minimizes off label use which Lovaza gets much of its sales from. This all changes with Anchor where Vascepa will be cheaper than Lovaza off label and Doctors only prescribe Lovaza off label because the high trig market has no alternative(thus Vascepa being an unmet medical need) which will change.
AMRN has enough money to get through the year. They DO NOT have enough money for 1000 sales reps needed to launch Anchor. I have confidence the management team will minimize dilution and maximize value in the Anchor indication. Proper launch of Anchor could very well lead to 500 million in sales in 2014. The terms of partner/launch financing will determine a lot but they are not giving part of AMRN away for nothing.
