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Allergan Brass Talk Up Recent Deals, Road Ahead

Allergan PLC has been building up its Irvine-focused business lines through deals and is sharing its thoughts on the company with Wall Street.

Company Chairman Paul Bisaro and Chief Executive Brent Saunders recently met with BMO Capital Markets analyst David Maris as part of the brokerage’s specialty pharmaceutical day to talk about a deal that predated its recent acquisitions of a migraine drug program from Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based Merck & Co. for $250 million, and of a dry-eye treatment from South San Francisco-based Oculeve Inc. for $125 million. The deals also include milestone payments.

Allergan, which operates from Parsippany, N.J., and has its on-the-books headquarters in Ireland, said in June that it was spending $2.1 billion to buy Westlake Village-based Kythera Biopharmaceuticals Inc.

Report highlights included:

• Allergan’s plans to work with the Food and Drug Administration to find other indications for which there is a “viable path to approval” for Kythera products.

It will pick its spots once the acquisition closes, which is expected to happen in the current quarter.

The FDA has already approved Kythera’s double-chin fighter, Kybella.

• The fact that 262 of the 267 employees on the company’s “high-priority” retention list have stayed with the new Allergan.

• That the company is focused on drug candidates, such as Eluxadoline, a gastroenterology medication, and antipsychotic Cariprazine, but still pursuing smaller products, including Liletta, an intrauterine contraceptive device that was approved in February, roughly three weeks before Actavis PLC wrapped up its $72.5 billion deal for Irvine-based Allergan Inc. The combined company took on the Allergan name in mid-June.

• Saunders’ mention of an upcoming clinical trial for DARPin, a potential treatment for age-related macular degeneration.

“If it works, it’s going to be huge,” he said.

• That Allergan’s generic drug business, a historical part of predecessor Actavis, is providing value, according to Saunders.

• Bisaro’s comment that consolidation in the specialty drug sector is good for the industry.

New Health Essentials CEO

Alan Hoops is the new chief executive of Santa Ana-based managed care provider Health Essentials LLC.

Hoops had served as interim chief executive since February following the departure of Michael Radu. He has served as the company’s executive chairman since 2012.

Health Essentials serves senior citizens who are sicker than the norm, including those who are frail, disabled or at the end of life, with what it calls “coordinated care” delivered in patients’ homes.

The company includes a medical group, hospice, pharmacy and durable medical equipment supplier.

“The care provided to the frail elderly nearing the end of life is an unambiguous problem,” Hoops said in a statement. “The cost is excessive and too often, the wishes of patients and families are ignored. Health Essentials’ executives and employees are here to change that.”

Hoops joined Health Essentials in 2012 as executive chairman around the same time the company received an undisclosed amount of funding from SV Life Sciences and Bessemer Venture Partners, both of Menlo Park.

Health Essentials evolved out of GeriNet, a medical group established in the mid-1990s by Kim Phan, Health Essentials’ cofounder and executive vice president of business development.

“There is no better leader for Health Essentials than Alan,” Phan said in a news release, adding that Hoops has been “intimately involved with our development from the beginning.”

Broader Direct Flow Trial OK’d

Santa Rosa-based Direct Flow Medical Inc., which has manufacturing in Lake Forest, said that the Food and Drug Administration approved a broadening of its clinical trial.

Direct Flow makes less-invasive replacement heart valves.

The company said that the approval allows the trial to include high-risk patients and to introduce randomization against the CoreValve device, which was developed in Orange County and is produced by Ireland-based Medtronic PLC.

The expanded trial will include 942 participants and be conducted at up to 45 U.S. sites.

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