Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions).
Jerry Proehl
While we are waiting for questions, I’d like to mention that we will be presenting at the 29th annual Cowan and Company healthcare conference on Tuesday, March 17th at the Boston Marriot Copley Place. We look forward to meeting you in person if you are planning to attend. A web cast of our corporate presentation will be available on the Santarus website. Operator, we are ready for the first question.
Operator
Your first question comes from the line of David Amsellem with Piper Jaffray.
David Amsellem – Piper Jaffray
Do you have any IP separate from the orange book, listed IP on the capsules, and do you have any IP pending around that formulation. Secondly, is it reasonable to assume that there won’t be any three years of hatch protection for the tablet?
Jerry Proehl
To address your last question, there is no additional three years of exclusivity on the tablet. The University of Missouri has filed patents that cover the tablet formulation and Santarus has also filed separate patents that cover the tablet formulation. The Santarus patent would actually go beyond the 2016 date that the Missouri patents would cover.
David Amsellem – Piper Jaffray
Can you say how many shares you are assuming in your 2009 guidance, and actually, put in another way, how many shares did you issue to Cosmo?
Debbie Crawford
We have issued 6 million shares to Cosmo in December, so at December 31st, we had 57.8 million shares outstanding. There is a provision in the agreement with Cosmo whereby as certain milestones are achieved, Cosmo would have the option of obtaining payment for those milestones in shares or cash, so at this time we are not predicting what Cosmo would decide to do, so at this time, we are not assuming any significant additional issuance of shares.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your next question comes from the line of Larry Smith with DLS Research.
Larry Smith – DLS Research
Jerry, in posting a 9% price increase for ZEGERID, what does that really mean in terms of the effective price increase across the whole ZEGERID product line? You obviously have some accounts which are contracted where the price increase probably doesn’t mean a whole lot, but what does it really mean in terms of the weighted average price increase on ZEGERID in 2009?
Jerry Proehl
Certainly we don’t get into the specifics on each of the individual accounts. What I will say is as you mentioned we contract with managed care accounts, we contract with the government. Some of those contracts are written such that those accounts get a net price, so when you take a pricing action, that pricing action won’t actually end up being passed on to those accounts. Other accounts, we negotiate a deal where we can actually pass on some of that price increase. Sometimes it’s the full price increase, sometimes it is a portion of the price increase, and then obviously there is business that is non-contracted business that we would be able to get the full price increase, so you are right, ultimately it’s not the full 9%. It’s something less than that, but we haven’t gotten into the specifics of what would be.
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