Amarin los­es patent ap­peal and their brief grip on a car­dio­vas­cu­lar, fish oil em­pire

Amarin’s briefly-held fish oil em­pire has slipped from its grasp, and now ap­pears gone for good.

A US fed­er­al ap­peals court re­fused on Thurs­day to over­turn a March rul­ing that stripped the Irish drug­mak­er of its patents on the fish oil-based heart drug Vas­cepa, open­ing the door for gener­ic al­ter­na­tives to hit the mar­ket. The rul­ing means that Amarin’s chance of turn­ing an ex­pand­ed ap­proval from last De­cem­ber in­to block­buster rev­enues has es­sen­tial­ly van­ished.

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