courtesy of proactiveinvestors:28 Mar 2017 09:48
Company news
Amryt Pharma (LON:AMYT, 19.23p) – Speculative Buy
Amryt Pharma (‘Amryt’), the pharmaceutical company focused on best-in-class treatments for rare and orphan diseases, yesterday announced the appointment of new Chief Commercial Officer (non-board), David Allmond, effective from 3 April 2017. Mr. Allmond has over 20 years' experience in the pharmaceutical industry in commercial roles. He joins the Company from Aegerion Pharmaceuticals (subsidiary of Novelion Therapeutics) where he was President of EMEA and, in particular, involved in the commercialisation of Lojuxta (lomitapide), the drug used to treat Homozygous Familial Hypercholesterolemia (‘HoFH’), approved in the EU since 2013. Amryt acquired the exclusive rights to sell Lojuxta across the EU, MENA (Middle East and North Africa), Turkey and Israel in December 2016. Prior to Aegerion, Mr. Allmond was Corporate Vice President of Global Marketing for Celgene Corporation where he was responsible for EMEA marketing and market access within Celgene. Prior to Celgene, he was Director of Sales and Marketing Effectiveness at Amgen Ltd. Amryt’s CEO, Joe Wiley, commented “We are pleased to welcome David to Amryt. David will resume control of the Lojuxta team and is the ideal person to take on responsibility for the commercial development of this business. We remain very excited about the potential to increase the numbers of patients on treatment in existing markets and also to open new markets within our territories”. Amryt is expected to announce its full year result on 30 March 2017.
Our view: Building out the key management team to meet its commercial opportunities. This is a key appointment, as the new CCO was involved in the commercialisation of Lojuxta at Aegerion. Mr. Allmond, together with Amryt’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Mark Sumeray (previously a Chief Medical Officer at Aegerion led the clinical development and regulatory approval of the drug), will significantly boost the knowledge and accelerate commercial development of Lojuxta through building further commercial, medical and regulatory infrastructure necessary to support sales expansion. HoFH is a very rare, genetic disorder which starts in utero and causes premature cardiovascular disease. Historically, HoFH was estimated to occur in about 1 in 1 million people worldwide, but more recent studies suggest it may affect up to 1 in 300,000 people. The Group’s total licensed market for Lojuxta for HoFH indication is estimated at €50m and in Q3 2016, Aegerion generated US$22m in net product sales of lomitapide, of which, 15% was from prescriptions written outside of the US. Of this, 30% comes from Brazil and 70% was from the territories now being licensed to Amryt. With currently available treatment showing limited efficacy for some patients in controlling their LDL cholesterol (“bad” cholesterol) levels, there is significant potential for the
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