Apax Partners

With hundreds of other pharmaceuticals also prescribed by doctors, there is an opportunity for specialty pharma companies that solely focus on drugs targeted to a specific group of patients suffering from a particular disease.

Marketing driven

Specialty pharma companies market drugs targeted at particular diseases that respond well to sales force promotion.

These products often have revenues of less than $200m, which makes their promotion a lower priority for the large pharmaceutical companies. With careful targeting of which doctors to detail, relatively small specialty sales forces can be dramatically effective, driving significant growth in the number of prescriptions of a particular drug.

Development and execution focus

With no investment in basic research, specialty pharma companies will in-license products to drive revenue growth or develop new indications or new formulations for current products. The development of new formulations in particular is a key factor in the commercial success of many specialty pharma companies.

Zeneus

Zeneus Pharma, is an oncology and critical care specialty pharmaceutical company that markets drugs developed by US-based companies to European hospital specialists. Zeneus’s European sales force has a presence in 17 countries and sells directly to specialist doctors in hospitals and other healthcare centres.

Zeneus’s products are successful because they are innovative reformulations with fewer side effects, are more effective than drugs used to treat the same diseases and are better tolerated by patients. Funds advised by Apax Partners invested in Zeneus in 2004. Zeneus Pharma case study, Read more>>

ESP Pharma

ESP Pharma is focused on the acute care hospital setting. It was founded in 2002 when Funds advised by Apax Partners acquired four  products from Wyeth.
The Company identifies, selectively acquires and enhances the potential of novel, commercially available therapeutics and late-stage development specialty drugs.
ESP Pharma’s goal is to identify unmet or under served markets and find therapeutic and pipeline compounds that will capture these markets using its world-class expertise in business development, sales and marketing and medical professionals. ESP Pharma case study, Read more>>

Xanodyne

Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals focuses on innovative products in the therapeutic areas of women’s health and pain management.  In July 2005 it was announced that the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware had approved its bid to acquire the pain management pharmaceutical assets of aaiPharma.

Apax Partners’ Funds co-led a consortium that backed Xanodyne’s acquisition of the assets, which included Darvon(R) and Darvocet(R), two drugs with a strong heritage in pain management. The purchase also included three pain products that were in clinical development and one other early-stage development product with potential sales of $500 million - $1 billion. The combined business will have pro-forma 2005 revenues of approximately $100 million, and will create a new force in the specialty pharmaceuticals sector. Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals press release, Read more>>