and are GLP-1’s only for moderately well-to-do fat people?
I kind of sort of get your take here, but apples and oranges at present.
GLP-1s are expensive injectables. They aren’t going to change the world overnight for vast majority of humans, imo.
If we want to chat more on GLP-1’s, lets please start a separate thread, so as not to water down the ESPR thread too much. Thanks!
-Dreamer
this website must read our board…article apparently dropped today:
Dreamer
I am continuing to add. My $2.14 limit order was filled. Today I added more at $2.10. Just 2.9% of the IRA. I opened a position in my taxable account at $2.14, 2.2% of that account. I sold some treasury ETF to add cash to that account.
Unfortunately, some of the available IRA cash came from selling ENVX a week ago. Some of you may have noticed the +35% move on 6/25. Sigh.
KC
well - this spiked after daddy big bucks (KC) posted his buys. 
In all seriousness, this should be considered high reward but still high risk until the Q2 and Q3-Q4 sales numbers validate the growing script/sales tailwinds.
Too easy to have this sucker fly to $3 range on optimism and crash back to $2 range on FUD. Both views are justified until proven incorrect, and right now ESPR is like Schoedinger’s Cat…we don’t know if it is dead or alive until we open the box (or until the next ER).
I do like this one poster who seems to form his thoughts around the filings, which is nice vs most on the internet. Dave100:
“a couple thoughts on what (CEO) Sheldon’s timing may be from looking at the timeline listed on the last quarterly report. First he wants to get the next chunk of shares and options granted to so he can finally be aligned with his investors. This will happpen before Q2 earnings release. Then they list ”Additional country launches” just past the halfway point of 2024. There is no way they launch in Canada or Australia without a partner. This will probably be announced right around earnings to hopefully build momentum. Partnership may bring in cash that could be used for RIPA refinance. Then they list file INDs for new indications towards the end the year. This could be released right after Q3 earnings to build on what should be some strong interest.”
Will be interesting to see if that comes to pass.
I hadn’t thought of the other country (Canada/Aust) opps as a way to grab upfront dollars, as I believe CEO stated they (Esperion) planned on going after that. Being so small, it is understandable to question how they expand in new countries without the infrastructure and local sales teams, etc etc… So a partnership makes sense. Previously some had hypothesized that Esperion might be taking the upfront Otsuka (Japan partner) royalty payments and just getting them all in lump sum to pay down their debt, in return allowing Otsuka free reign of Japan without royalty payments (or something like that).
Either way, I do expect the next 6 weeks to be very revealing. Their EU partner DSE should report first, then Esperion reports, then new 13 filings will hit showing if funds have continued to invest and increase their shares or not. I have read that ESPR is about 70% institution owned, but haven’t run the numbers myself. And we probably do get some PR’s from Esperion announcing…something. LIkely that something tied to market expansion but also likely tied to paying down RIPA and addressing their Nov 2025 notes coming due.
So I think retail’s impact is limited here. The bigger boys are playing games and we are just along for the ride.
Another tidbit is that they are supposedly being added to Russell at EoW, but mixed messages on what kind of impact this really has on stock and if funds have just been buying the needed shares along the way making it a nothing-burger of an event.
Dreamer
bought more today. We shall see.
Thanks, Dreamer.
Esperion announced that it has entered into a Royalty Purchase Agreement with OMERS Life Sciences (OMERS), under which Esperion received approximately $304.7 million in cash from OMERS in exchange for 100% interest, subject to a cap, in Esperion’s royalty entitlement on Daiichi Sankyo Europe’s (DSE) net sales of bempedoic acid products in the European territories for which DSE has an exclusive license from Esperion.Under the terms of the Agreement
+20% pre-market.
And thanks to BofA analyst, too. My plan was to trade the $2 to $3 range. Have to reevaluate that.
Edit at 9:55. That didn’t last long. $2.91 pre-market at one point, $2.49 now.
Just another day in the market.
KC
Yep…just further derisked the US business and removed debt overhang.
Still have sub-$300m in Nov 2025 notes, but now can refinance w no hurdles and still have over a year before they have to even worry about it.
up 20% premarket, now back down.
either you like the deal or not…rest is noise.
I see it as removal of debt overhang without long-term loss of royalties as it reverts back to Esperion (or whoever acquires them) once approx $500m in royalties is paid out by DSE. I am guessing DSE has to do about $2.5b in sales, so probably 2-3 years at current growth pace.
Then you turn the spigot back on.
In the meantime, you pay no more interest on the RIPA and your books are clean outside of Nov 2025 notes.
You still have Otsuka about to open Japan market, and you also still get milestone payments from DSE (just not the royalties) along the way…so you get a few lump sum payments.
Seems like a win win.
Bought more on drop.
Dreamer
the warrant stuff is always over my head.
never understood it during the SPAC craze either.
but a bunch of warrants out there, and the story goes Armistice can’t own more than 9.9% of company (or something like that) and had/have warrants for much more. and maybe something like the warrants are useless if Buyout occurs…so motivated to sell them off now.
I have no idea. If someone understands that better than me, let me know.
Makes about as much sense as BOA buying 4.5m shares in Q1 and then having a BOA analyst downgrade the stock after that. All feels like manipulation/noise, and all I can do is look at the facts;
expanded label
ramping sales (we believe)
insurers getting on board
RIPA (debt) overhang just eliminated
Otsuka on track for Japan launch/milestone payments early 2025
DSE milestone payments still go to Esperion
Eventually (2-3 years from now?) Esperion gets back the DSE royalty streams
No obvious competition at moment, outside of the 800lb gorilla (statins)
The drug is roughly $4000 per year per prescription in rev.
100k prescriptions = $400m in sales
Can Esperion get up to 2/10th of 1% of that population?
Esperion has only approved non-statin for primary prevention in cholesterol med space at moment.
Their current runrate was $100m based on Q1, but should finish closer to $125m in US sales if each Q shows good sequential growth.
typical P/S for small pharma firm is 3-5x from what I read.
If they get to $400m sales in next couple of years, that is $1.2b to $2b mkt cap.
Current mkt cap is a bit murky as I am not positive on fully diluted shares with latest stock comp awards at annual meeting. But assuming higher than Yahoo finance…let’s call it $500m mkt cap at moment.
That is the conservative napkin math I am playing with.
All rests on whether the growth in sales is there like we think.
Still aiming for $29m US sales for Q2. Q1 was $24.8m I believe.
Q2 has only 1 really good month of improved insurance coverage.
Q3 should see more of an inflection with a full Q of improved insurance access/pricing on prescriptions.
Q4 should be the continued increased awareness among physicians, etc…
That is the thesis.
Just a guy on the internet.
Do your own DD.
Enjoy the weekend all!
Dreamer
final volume today…news plus Russell index adds? Probably new volume record.
My feed shows 61.4 M shares, but that might include pre-market volume. Interesting is the last minute of trade, 22,861,438 with only a +1 cent price movement. I think it is not unusual for the last minute volume to be high. For example, I can enter a “sell at market close” order on E*Trade. But, maybe that volume was related to Russell Index. Maybe. Or, not. …
KC
for the corporate tax nerds to weigh in…sounds positive, but I didn’t need the forensic breakdown to view it positively either, but nice to have for those that need that sort of thing:
Dreamer
stuff about the science…
Cardiovascular risk reduction with bempedoic acid is similar to that achieved with statins for a given absolute magnitude of LDL-C lowering. (Evaluation of Major Adverse Cardiovascular Events in Participants With, or at High Risk for, Cardiovascular Disease Who Are Statin Intolerant Treated with Bempedoic Acid [ETC-1002] or Placebo [CLEAR Outcomes]; NCT02993406).
https://www.jacc.org/doi/10.1016/j.jacc.2024.04.048
Dreamer
2nd or 3rd time I have seen this hope/concept of Esperion partnering with a Big Pharma (BP) for the US business.
This is actually a real interesting solution for me and the more I consider it the more I like it and wonder if that is how this might play out.
Why?
If Esperion has an ideal buyout number in mind, I can see a BP being hesitant to pay it due to the unknown risk of any acquisition and the patent is probably shorter than preferred before they would lose future gains to generics in 2031 or so (assuming no new extension granted).
But a partnership, assuming some sort of upfront payment and then a % revenue share, with a company that has thousands of sales reps (vs the 150 Esperion has for US) would lead to a vastly accelerated ramp.
No idea how often this arrangement happens nor what good terms would be, but let’s say $250m upfront (pay off rest of their debt more or less) and then a 70/30 split with Esperion getting 30%?
A BP would likely scale this quickly to $1b-2b/year in sales, so $300-600m in royalties and then growing.
To avoid a BP partnering and immediately squashing the drug and sitting on it, I imagine there would be some sort of penalty if X amount not sold by X date and then it reverts back to Esperion.
This partnership idea further makes sense bc it was pointed out that Esperion wanted to go after the Canada and Australian markets. How they would do that without infrastructure and sales teams in region? So a partnership for US could include those regions also.
Dunno. Interesting thought experiment though. And if it did happen, the stock would immediately take off due to protection of a big brother, I would imagine. Probably not as huge a stock price upside as if they did go it alone and did reach hypergrowth for 3-4-5 years in a row…but that also has risks and uncertainty.
Dreamer
this will probably get deleted by community…
Esperion PR today on their ad campaign, which was mentioned back on May 7th ER, so unclear why they are sending PR about it 10 weeks later, but still good to put out there, I guess.
https://www.esperion.com/news-releases/news-release-details/new-digital-first-marketing-campaign-esperion-alerts-patients
Dreamer
Whatever. ESPR up 9.2% today, so it worked. What’s your sell point? I am thinking $2.98, don’t want it to fail at the $3 psychological level and return to $2 while I am holding the bag. ESPR is now the largest of my scaled down holdings, 3.7%.Two thirds of that is my trade holdings, but that old devil Mr. Greed is whispering that this might be the breakout and its going to the moon.
KC
For me, this seems to have too much potential upside to sell hoping it will offer a better price. I know it has a number of times but a good earnings call or news could easily have it jump and not return to the low $2’s. I could see some trimming but not willing to sell Cover Calls or trade out completely.
That is kind of where my head is at.
For me, this is not a trading stock, although it obviously should have been, in hindsight, since Dec with the huge up/down swings.
I have always been waiting, since the label expansion was confirmed, for Q2 and Q3 ERs to prove out the sales growth. This is needed either to help secure a buyout or if they intend to go it alone. A 3rd option is a US partnership with a big pharma.
Q2 ER should be 3 weeks away, give or take. While I don’t expect blockbuster sales growth due to payers only be on board and improving their UM since June, the color during the ER, if any, will be key for how mgmt thinks Q3 and 2H are shaping up to be.
My Q2 US sales goal is approx $29m. Then $35m and $42m for Q3/Q4. That is about 70% y/y growth, on just the US sales if they finish 2024 like that.
I prefer a Buyout or US partnership sooner rather than later. Will take big gains now vs hoping for bigger gains later.
KC asked, what is my sell price? I won’t cry if $5-6, but will be disappointed. Ok with $7-9, and getting ecstatic with anything over $10. I tend to think in terms of mkt cap…what is fair price for Big Pharma to pay, to either guard against PCKS-9 threats and go after statin intolerance? Dunno. But thinking it is under $3b. Stock is approx $500m now (but not sure that reflects all possible dilution yet). So a 3x from here puts you probably close to $2b mkt cap and a bit over $8 share?
Dreamer
Aug 6th ER, bmo
just fyi
