HispanicBusiness

In what appears to be a very smart move, Pozen sold most of the future royalty and milestone payments covering Treximet sales in the United States to a financial investor for $75 million in November, 2011. On the surface, this move did not appear to carry much weight, but upon closer inspection we noticed that the company is piggybacking the product by retaining exclusive U.S. rights to develop and market a lower dose: sumatriptan and naproxen combination (MT400). This is the same combination used in Treximet. By making the move, the company raised tens of millions while keeping virtually the same product in development.

A pipeline chart later in this article shows the MT 400 drug in Phase III development. As a result of the Treximet decision, one year later the company remains shareholder friendly having achieved a hefty cash position while avoiding dilution.

As of the end of Q3, 2012, Pozen had approximately $92 million in cash and short term investments. In contrast, the dilution to raise cash was one annoyance we had with an otherwise capable management team at Antares. While it may ultimately be the best course of action for them moving forward, when they raised money last year, it left many investors feeling like it was unnecessary at the time.

Upcoming Catalyst:

Pozen plans on filing an NDA finance.yahoo.com%2fnews%2fpozen-announces-positive-results-pa8140-210500135.html">in April for its first PA product PA32540, which is a combination of 325 mg aspirin and 40 mg time-released omeprazole, better known as Prilosec, originally created by AstraZeneca.

From the company's website, we read;

"Pozen's active PA product portfolio is focused on designing cost-effective, integrated aspirin therapies that enable the full power of aspirin by reducing its potential gastrointestinal (GI) damage. The PA product portfolio has the potential to benefit millions of Americans who use daily aspirin to treat cardiovascular disease, osteoarthritis, and other diseases."

PA32540 is designed to be a GI-safer form of aspirin to be administered orally once a day, at a cost of 1 dollar per day. PA32540 prevents secondary cardiovascular disease in patients at risk for aspirin-associated gastric ulcers.

Last week, the company finance.yahoo.com%2fnews%2fpozen-presents-positive-pa32540-phase-123000787.html">announced the combined results of two Phase III studies of PA32540:

"According to the studies, in the post-hoc analysis of subjects with a history of transient ischemic attack (TIA) or stroke, long-term (6 months) treatment with PA32540, compared to EC-ASA (325 mg), was associated with a significantly reduced rate of endoscopic gastroduodenal ulcers (2.0% vs. 12.4% respectively; p=0.005), and study discontinuation due to adverse pre-specified upper GI events (0% vs. 8.0% respectively; p=0.006). The incidence of adjudicated major adverse cardiac events was similar for PA32540 (2.9%) and EC-ASA (325 mg) (4.4%)."