This is getting serious folks - FDA pulling out all the stops to beat up AMRN in public and possibly intimidate the 4 doctors that filed an Amicus brief in the 1st A lawsuit - all were from NYC, not a coincidence IMO. Most of the report is focused on opiate pill mills, doctors who overprescribe, and pharmacies that fill huge numbers of opiate scrips compared to the average - a real problem - but putting V in the report is ludicrous - total costs of V is 3 or 4 decimal points to the right of total Medicare Part D spending! ($121.1 billion in 2014 - V is 0.0000596%)
The part mentioning V sales is utter nonsense, of course - of course the two largest cities in the US are going to have the highest V sales - using cost of V per total Medicare patients in the population is statistical funny business at it's worst. They also appear to be claiming OTC "fish oil" is equivalent to V, another falsehood, although it could be argued that OTC equivalents of Lovaza are available, at large out of pockets costs for the patient, of course, and of questionable purity:
Vascepa and Lovaza in Los Angeles and New York
The Los Angeles and New York areas are hotspots for Vascepa and Lovaza, which are omega-3 fatty acids that are used to help reduce high triglyceride levels. Over-the-counter supplements of omega-3 are available. For Vascepa, the average Medicare payment per beneficiary was more than 7 times the national average in Los Angeles and almost triple the national average in New York. Medicare paid $9 million for Vascepa in these two areas, which amounted to 43 percent of all Medicare payments for this drug in 2014. For Lovaza, the average Medicare payment per beneficiary in both Los Angeles and New York was three times the national average. These two areas accounted for $96 million in Medicare payments for Lovaza, which is close to one-third of all Medicare payments for
the drug in 2014.