Under the leadership of Scott Tarriff, Eagle Pharmaceuticals is changing lives through innovation.<\/p>\n
When Scott Tarriff founded Eagle Pharmaceuticals from his home in New Jersey in 2007, he could not have imagined the impact the company would have on the pharma industry\u2014and the secret to its success has been in taking a refreshing approach to drug development and commercialization. Eagle takes existing drugs and reformulates them to improve the treatment of underlying conditions, and develops new indications for previously untreatable conditions; indeed, many of these products and product candidates are life-changing.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur thesis is that there are gaps in the way healthcare was, and is, being delivered,\u201d Tarriff told CEO Magazine. \u201cThis led to suboptimal results. What we have concentrated on as a company is the idea of reformulating existing drugs, and in turn, improving how patients are treated. In many cases, these changes have allowed us to pursue these drugs for indications for which they weren\u2019t used previously. And that\u2019s something we\u2019re very excited about.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eagle Pharmaceuticals is a specialty pharmaceutical company based in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, that is working to advance safe and efficient injectable treatments for patients across oncology, critical care, and orphan diseases. With the majority of its revenues currently based on the groundbreaking cancer treatment drug Bendeka\u00ae, which Eagle worked to develop, the company enjoyed revenues of $213.3 million in 2018.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, the key to our success, what\u2019s important to our company, is helping patients,\u201d Tarriff stressed. \u201cWe see ourselves as solving medical problems and at the same time we have a management team and board that is keenly aware of our social responsibility in being a part of the healthcare process.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>
The business model Eagle has followed, and which has brought the company such success, has been to take existing pharmaceutical drugs and chemically reformulate them to address shortcomings of the reference product, in many cases producing life-changing results.<\/p>\n
\u201cHistorically, our business model was amongst the first of its type,\u201d Tarriff explained. \u201cWhen we started, we were the only company focused on reformulating those drugs and changing the way they\u2019re used. What sets us apart, the value we have at Eagle, is identifying the problems that patients and caregivers are having.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe spend a lot of time listening to the stakeholders in the pharma business\u2014physicians, pharmacists, nurses, payers, FDA, and most importantly, patients. We identify the problems with existing products and figure out ways to fix them\u2014that element, combined with the people we have at Eagle, is what really sets us apart.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eagle has primarily focused on reformulating drugs that tackle rare and critical medical conditions, which are extremely complicated, or delicate, to treat, such as cancer, malignant hyperthermia, nerve agent exposure, and acute radiation syndrome.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have two drugs on the market today, one of which is Bendeka\u00ae, a chemotherapy drug, which we reformulated so that patients would spend less time in the infusion chair,\u201d Tarriff elaborated. \u201cWe went from a drug that was infused over 30 to 60 minutes down to just ten minutes. We also developed a drug called Ryanodex\u00ae, which is used to treat a rare and often fatal disease called malignant hyperthermia. We were able to reduce the amount of liquid solution that was needed for treatment from 720mL (12-13 vials) down to one little 5mL vial.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the many reasons I believe we are situated well for the future is that we are currently collaborating with the US Department of Defense to develop a drug for nerve agent exposure,\u201d he added. \u201cWe finished our final study of this drug in May with positive results. Ryanodex is also being studied for acute radiation syndrome and exertional heat stroke. The idea is you reformulate, you make the drug easier to use, with meaningful patient benefits, and potentially execute on the clinical and regulatory process required for approval for indications that didn\u2019t exist before.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re uniquely positioned going forward because there are numerous situations like this in the marketplace where drugs just need to be improved. And that\u2019s where we come in.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>
Tarriff\u2019s philosophy towards the industry is one based on maximizing efficiency, and partnering with CMO\u2019s (Contract Manufacturing Organizations) is a big part of this. The reality is that many of the products Eagle develops, such as oncology products, require very detailed and expensive manufacturing processes, making successful strategic partnerships a crucial element of the company\u2019s success.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really wouldn\u2019t have been possible for us to raise the money to build our own manufacturing facilities, so we license out and work very closely with our partners,\u201d Tarriff explained. \u201cThe same holds true for the technology we use. We\u2019re really good at identifying problems, understanding how drugs are developed, and fixing those problems. But the conclusion we came to years ago is that we didn\u2019t need to own the manufacturing facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two of Eagle\u2019s key strategic partners that Tarriff believes have made the above possible are contract manufacturer, BSP Pharmaceuticals, based in Italy, and Teva Pharmaceuticals, which handles the marketing and sales of Bendeka\u00ae.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have smart, experienced people in our company that know how to effectively outsource and manage relationships,\u201d Tarriff highlighted. \u201cWe have about 100 employees. Fifty of them work on the commercial side, and the majority of the other 50% are in R&D. When you\u2019re developing a pharmaceutical product, you need API and a site to manufacture finished product. Our philosophy is to hire the best and brightest in the industry to find and source the best strategic suppliers around the globe.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>
Tarriff used the example of the development of the chemotherapy drug Bendeka\u00ae in partnership with Teva Pharmaceuticals, with whom Eagle has been working since 2015, to illustrate the benefits of such relationships.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this situation Teva was marketing Treanda\u00ae which required a 30-60 minute infusion time for patients,\u201d Tarriff explained. \u201cThey saw the advantage of our 10-minute version (Bendeka\u00ae). So, instead of commercializing on our own, we decided to license it to them. That was great for both companies. Now it\u2019s the leading drug for certain types of cancer in the US. We\u2019re responsible for the manufacturing; Teva is responsible for sales and marketing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>
Tarriff believes that through a combination of passion for the industry, collaboration with other innovative companies, and a deep desire to solve medical problems and help patients, Eagle will continue on the successful path he and his staff first began to build twelve years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cFortunately, we\u2019re a profitable company which has managed its balance sheet really well,\u201d Tarriff said. \u201cOur 5-10 year plan anticipates solid growth continuing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also continue to have a significant number of ideas on how other pharmaceutical products could be improved,\u201d he insisted.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re putting 20-21% of our revenue into R&D, so we have plenty of capacity and ability to acquire programs, assets, and continue to develop improved medicines within the company. We\u2019re just really excited about the projects we\u2019re working on to improve patient care.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>
Under the leadership of Scott Tarriff, Eagle Pharmaceuticals is changing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":21606,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[99,1385,2160,2157,2158,2159],"class_list":["post-21611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-executive-interviews","tag-ceo","tag-ceo-northam","tag-ceo-scott-tarriff","tag-eagle","tag-eagle-pharmaceuticals","tag-scott-tarriff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21611"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23630,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21611\/revisions\/23630"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/servidor-mxigen1.com\/ceona-antiguo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}