Distanced from a pricing controversy, Jeff Aronin steers one of his biotechs to Nasdaq — with a familiar regulatory strategy tied to a big bet
Jeff Aronin has come a long way since he stirred a hornet’s nest 4 years ago after directing an old steroid — which he picked up cheap — to Duchenne MD patients for $89,000. But a slice of the same basic business strategy is on display in a new campaign to take one of the biotechs in the Paragon portfolio onto Nasdaq through a $100 million IPO.
The biotech is Harmony Biosciences, which acquired a narcolepsy drug called pitolisant from Bioprojet in France — where it won an EMA OK in 2016 — and hustled it to an FDA approval with the data on hand. It’s now sold as Wakix for excessive daytime sleepiness.
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