Business podcast: May 26th
John Collins meets an entrepreneurial DIT student, finds out about Ernst & Young’s views on business in India, gets Dominic Coyle’s view on Elan and hears about the race for the IMF top job from Arthur Beesley
Business editor John McManus hosts a special podcast with members of DCU’s Enterprise Advisory Board; Professor Brian Mac Craith, President DCU; Tony Donohoe, Education & Research, IBEC; Clare Duignan, Managing Director, RTÉ Radio and Paula Neary, Partner, Accenture.
Brendan Butler discusses Ibec’s job creation proposals, Declan Stone of Colliers International on the retail property market and Ciaran Hancock on Liberty Mutual’s plans for Quinn Insurance. John Collins presents.
Everyone loves a winner….almost four years to the day that the company’s highly touted Huntington’s drug collapsed in a clinical trial, Amarin earlier today announced results of a trial of the same compound but for a very different condition. And this time, it has hit all targets and more.
The stock market reaction was immediate. Having traded at $8.87 last Friday, it opened yesterday at $16.44. At its peak, the shares touched $17.44 before closing the day at $17.10.
The weight of interest behind the stock showed in the volumes. Last Friday, 8.83 million shares in the Irish-based drug developer traded, itself notably ahead of the 1.9 million daily average over the past three months. Yesterday, just shy of 53.5 million shares changed hands.
A company that was worth a mere $25 million back in October 2009 when Fountain Healthcare led a $70 million funding round that financed the latest clinical trials is now worth $1.82 billion.
And no-one is talking down the prospects of this Elan spinoff. The market for treatment of elevated triglycerides – a type of fat stored from food intake and released as energy which at elevated levels are seen as increasing the risk of heart disease – is large and growing. Forty million patients in the US alone, Amarin says.
Even better, from the company’s view, is that there is no authorised product to match this need. GlaxoSmithKline’s Lovaza is licensed to treat only those with very high triglyceride levels – a group itself said to number four million in the US alone – and it has been notching up sales of around $1 billion a year.
In a further boost, not only is Amarin seen as extremely safe with no serious adverse side effects during the trials, but its also performs without increasing the level of low density lipoprotein (LDL-C or “bad cholesterol”), a factor which is an issue for Lovaza.
Manus Rogan, the managing partner of Dublin-based Fountain Healthcare and, since leading the 2009 investment round an Amarin director, said AMR1010 was “firmly on track to become a multibillion dollar blockbuster”.
The question now is whether chief executive Joe Zakrzewski can deliver on his determination to commercialise such a major drug inhouse or whether it will partner one of the big pharma players. There will be no shortage of suitors. Glaxo itself is facing patent expiry on Lovaza; then there is Pfizer where much of the R&D team behind AMR101 originated from. Given the dearth of pipeline blockbusters, you could run through most of the major industry players.
Then again, big pharma may fancy more than a partnership. The one thing they are rich in is cash and, as a small, one drug company, Amarin would be seen by many in the industry as a clean takeout, delivering a bumper payout to those who stuck with the stock when it was down and out and those who have invested along the road to recovery.
Of course, before then, the company needs to get its NDA into the Food and Drug Administration and secure authorisation to market to the broad elevated triglycerides market. That is likely to take a few months yet
Simon Carswell discusses AIB’s record annual loss, Suzanne McElligot of IAB Ireland on the growth of internet advertising and Urban Frog co-founder Angie McMenamin on setting up a new sports clothing brand. John Collins presents.
This week with ECB rates on the rise we look at what it might mean for already cash-strapped consumers; how to make your wardrobe make you money and venture capitalists in Silicon Valley are still flashing the cash.