Music up and out. Fade to black. Warburg, Novo Plan to Sell Archimedes Pharma Amy Or May 12, 2014 (c) 2014 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Warburg Pincus and Danish investment firm Novo AS are looking to sell Archimedes Pharma Ltd ., a U.K. specialty pharmaceutical company in a deal that may fetch up more than $200 million, said three people familiar with the situation. Two of the people said Reading, England-based Archimedes, which has a portfolio of specialty products focused on the oncology, pain and critical-care sectors throughout Europe, is expected to post $74 million in revenue this year. One of them said strategics are likely to be the buyer of the asset and would likely ascribe a two to three time multiple on revenue for it....
From the Worst Predictions of All Time Department. Note revenue projections for Lazanda. LONDON, May 1 (Reuters) - Warburg Pincus [WP.UL] is seeking a buyer for Archimedes Pharma, the British-based firm with a novel cancer pain treatment it hopes could generate sales of $500 mln a year, a person familiar with the matter said on Friday. The global private equity firm is exploring options for the unit and has contacted pharmaceutical companies in Europe and the United States about a possible sale, the person said. It hopes a deal could be wrapped up in the coming months. The possible sale is the latest sign of pharmaceutical sector dealmaking -- one of the busiest areas in an otherwise subdued mergers and acquisitions (M&A) market this year. The industry's big players are grappling with a patent expiry crisis, aiming to cut costs and find new sources of growth. Archimedes Pharma had sales of 20.4 million pounds ($30.3 million) in 2008. But it aims to launch NasalFent, a nasal spray to treat sudden bouts of pain in cancer sufferers -- so-called "breakthrough" pain -- next year. It hopes NasalFent, which uses the opiate fentanyl, could generate annual sales of $500 million or more, the person said.
I'm looking for a chocolate teapot, next on my list is Archimedes,slightly less useful but I would stretch to 50p!
Bucky is my hero! Someone actually bought his ability to commercialize a drug in the USA. Archemedies should be knighted!
Archimedes sold the US rights to Lazanda to Depomed. ProStrakan bought Archimedes without US rights to Lazanda, which wasn't much to begin with. Curious why ProStrakan bought it. Maybe they have some platform or pipeline stuff that's interesting. I think Lazanda was doing better in Europe than US anyway.
There is something cinematic about the Bucky story, something akin to the Wolf of Wall Street (some talent, a bit of luck, major failures, but landing on his feet eventually). First and foremost, his performance at Enzon was well known by the time he was hired at Archimedes. Lesson: If you make it to the ranks of CEO, you'll always have a job. But failure is often a team sport. You have to look not just at the Buck Meister, but his other henchman, to learn the true story of Archimedes demise. Yes, Bucky felt he could bust open the market by cultivating oncologists. (If all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail, and he felt his experience in oncology gave him insight no one else had.) The problem is, oncologists don't give a poop. Pain specialists rule this market, because they ultimately see all the intractable pain patients the oncologists can't handle with Percocets, which they can prescribe very easily, thank you very much. He might have been successful, if he had $100 million to spend breaking open a new market and if he could enter a time machine and launch Lazanda to oncologists in, say 1984, supported by hordes of promotional speaker programs, well-crafted and controlled CME programs, and all sorts of other goodies, but he couldn't. It was the second decade of the 21st century, and there were already 5 million other immediate release fentanyls in a contracting marketing, and no one gave damn. Oh well. But maybe he would have been successful if he hadn't surrounded himself with the likes of failed Big Pharma mini-megalomaniacs who felt that all you had to do to be successful was to tell KOLs to support the drug and just prescribe it. "Just do it!" Oh well. Guess they were wrong. Ooops.
