Orphan Drug Company Horizon Pharma Projects $1 Billion+ Sales for 2016, to Double Jobs by 2020
February 9, 2016
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
Horizon Pharma , with global headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, recently moved its U.S. headquarters to Lake Forest, Ill. from Deerfield, Ill., and brought 300 jobs with it.
On Jan. 12, 2016, the company updated its 2016 guidance, projecting net sales of $1.025 to $1.050 billion, up from a November 2015 projection of $950 to $975 million. The company’s adjusted EBITDA is now $505 to $520 million, up from the November projections of $460 to $475 million.
Part of this upgrade is the result of an acquisition of Crealta Holdings LLC announced on Dec. 11, 2015. With a $510 million cash price tag, Horizon also picked up Krystexxa, the first and only FDA-approved drug for chronic refractory gout, which is considered an orphan disease. Chronic refractory gout is a type of arthritis caused by uric acid buildup in the blood that doesn’t respond to traditional therapies. It affects about 50,000 people in the U.S. The drug was approved in 2010.
“The Crealta acquisition further diversifies our portfolio of medicines and aligns with our focus of acquiring value-enhancing, clinically differentiated, long-life medicines that treat orphan diseases,” said Timothy Walbert, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Horizon, in a statement. “We have a proven track record of strong commercial execution and the ability to generate volume growth for clinically differentiated medicines. With our experienced rheumatology sales force and orphan expertise, we expect to expand the number of patients identified and treated with Krystexxa. As with all of our orphan medicines, we plan to maximize additional development opportunities of Krystexxa.”
On Feb. 8, Horizon announced it was extending its manufacturing agreement with Mississauga, Ontario-based Nuvo Research Inc. to make Pennsaid for the U.S. market. The deal will extend to 2029, an additional seven years. In addition, the amended agreement offers tiered pricing based on product volumes. Pennsaid 2% is used to treat osteoarthritis of the knees.
Horizon was founded in 2008 by Timothy Walbert, who headed Abbott 's biologic business from 2001 to 2005. When founded, the company had one drug, Duexis, a combination of ibuprofen and famotidine. It was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2011 and hit the market in 2012. It achieved sales of $19 million the same year. It then acquired Rayos, a delayed time-release formulation of prednisone to treat various inflammation-related disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis.
The company currently markets nine therapeutics.
Reportedly, one of the things Walbert likes about the Lake Forest area is its proximity to other biopharma companies such as Abbott (ABT), AbbVie , Takeda , Astellas and others. “I’ve known some of our senior folks for 10 to 20 years,” he told Daily North Shore. “While some of the other companies were shrinking we were growing. We were able to draw from those people.”
The company employs about 900 people worldwide and expects to double that number by 2020. Walbert, perhaps in reference to Martin Shkreli and Turing Pharmaceuticals’ notoriety for buying drugs cheap and increasing their prices by multiples of thousands, andsimilar activity by Laval, Quebec-based Valeant Pharmaceuticals, Inc. , Walbert says he works to keep the company’s drug affordable.
“We don’t want any patient to be more than $10 out of pocket,” he told Daily North Shore. “We want people to be able to afford the medicine we sell.”