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2021 was a big year for Jazz Pharmaceuticals. The publicly traded company, founded in 2005 and known best for brands like Xyrem and Erwinaze, acquired GW Pharmaceuticals and won approval for an acute lymphoblastic leukemia drug known as Rylaze. Along the way, Jazz surpassed $3 billion in annual revenue for the first time. Leaders are looking to continue the momentum and have made public their intentions to nearly double that yearly revenue number by the end of 2025.
Daniel Epstein serves as Jazz’s corporate counsel for litigation. He has been with the company for more than six years and oversees a team of attorneys and paralegals. The group handles significant offensive and defensive litigation as well as smaller disputes, but in between those matters, the lawyers have opportunities to counsel their business colleagues on possible areas of risk and other matters as they pursue important objectives. Epstein looks for opportunities to engage with the physician-facing teams and patient advocacy teams while giving leaders input on how to meet their goals.
“Dan’s leadership skills, collaborative style, and shared commitment to achieving the best results possible make him a valued partner in our work for Jazz,” says Heidi Hubbard, partner at Williams & Connolly LLP.
Chairman and CEO Bruce Cozadd highlighted many of those goals while participating in the virtual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in early January 2022. In addition to his vision for growing revenue to $5 billion, Cozadd said he and his colleagues are aiming to get five or more novel products approved by 2030 as they expand both Jazz’s developmental pipeline and product portfolio.
“We are building on our track record and our patient-centered approach. We laid out vision 2025 in order to give investors and employees a better sense of where we’re going,” Cozadd told BioSpace.
The acquisition of GW Pharmaceuticals, a key player in cannabinoid-based prescription medicines, deepened Jazz’s neuroscience portfolio and laid important groundwork Cozadd intends to build upon.
“We are excited to welcome our GW colleagues to Jazz as we mark a transformative milestone in creating an innovative, high-growth, global biopharma leader in neuroscience with a worldwide commercial and operational footprint,” he said. The move announced on May 5, 2021, brought another high-growth opportunity to Jazz, as the cannabidiol oral treatment known as Epidolex used to treat childhood-onset epilepsy surpassed $500 million in annual sales.
Last year, the US Food and Drug Administration approved Xywav, a Jazz product used to treat narcolepsy. The company expects the drug to generate about $2 billion in yearly revenue. Additionally, the fast-growing company has around two dozen compounds in different parts of the development cycle.
As Cozadd told BioSpace, Jazz Pharmaceuticals has a Phase II study underway for JZP150, a therapeutic to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, and is also analyzing Nabixiols for advanced trials. The cannabis extract first developed by GW Pharmaceuticals and sold as an oral spray contains both THC and CBS and alleviates spasticity and related multiple sclerosis symptoms.
These measures will help Jazz solidify its status as a leading global biopharmaceutical company. Jazz has its headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, and serves patients in almost seventy-five countries. The medicines it develops, manufactures, and markets in neuroscience and oncology give hope to individuals with serious diseases who often have no other therapeutic option.
In 2022 and beyond, Jazz remains committed to pursuing new breakthroughs and delivering promising new products. As the year started, Cozadd posted a message on the company’s website saying the milestones reached in 2021 simply reinforce Jazz Pharmaceuticals’ “passion for developing innovative treatments that help improve the overall quality of life for patients around the world.” This year, he and his colleagues are looking to build upon all that’s come before.
