Amarin Corp. AMRN 314.72% more than tripled in value Monday, after the company said its drug derived from fish oil reduced the risk of heart attacks, strokes and deaths in certain high-risk patients.
The results could open the door for a new line of attack against heart disease, and turn Amarin’s drug Vascepa into a blockbuster, if the data is borne out under closer scrutiny.
Amarin’s announcement of the top-line results that Vascepa cut the risk of cardiovascular events in its study’s subjects by approximately 25% was short on details. The company said the data will be presented in detail at the American Heart Association’s annual meeting Nov. 10.
“This is indeed huge,” Amarin CEO John Thero said during a conference call with analysts. The result “positions Vascepa to be first to market in addressing a large unmet medical need.”
ADR shares of Dublin-based Amarin jumped 315% on the news, raising the company’s market cap by $2.8 billion, to $3.6 billion.
Vascepa, which is made from omega-3 fatty acid derived from fish, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2012 for use lowering fats known as triglycerides that circulate in the blood.
Sales have been limited—amounting to just $180 million in the U.S. last year—amid questions about whether lowering triglycerides can prevent heart attacks and strokes.
Amarin has been seeking to answer the questions by conducting a trial, known as Reduce-It, probing whether lowering triglycerides can have the kind of significant benefit improving heart health that reducing cholesterol has been proven to have.
The study was in 8,179 subjects who have diabetes, heart disease or are at risk of the disease and take a cholesterol-lowering statin drug. Amarin said it didn’t find any serious safety issues.
Ethan Weiss, an associate professor at the University of California, San Francisco, specializing in cardiology, said Amarin’s top-line results appear to confirm the benefits of lowering triglycerides and give doctors a new lever to pull for helping high-risk heart-disease patients.
Dr. Weiss said he wants to see the detailed results, however, to sort out which patients would be helped and whether the benefit stems from use of Vascepa “or whether other drugs, generic fish oil or even lifestyle modifications could have this effect or some effect.”
Vascepa use could surge if the data supports broader use of the pills, according to analysts. U.S. sales could reach $2 billion a year, Jefferies analyst Roger Song said in a note to investors.
Amarin has priced a 30-day supply of Vascepa at $278.58.
Amarin said it plans to ask the FDA early next year to expand Vascepa’s label to incorporate the study findings and has started adding U.S. sales representatives to promote the drug.
Write to Jonathan D. Rockoff at Jonathan.Rockoff@wsj.com