What factors influenced Frazier and THL to purchase Adare?

Adare’s new investment partners bring industry and operational expertise to help Adare accelerate its growth as a CDMO. Frazier Healthcare Partners, a leading healthcare-focused private equity firm, and Thomas H. Lee (THL), a premier global middle-market investor, have had much success together building business and creating value, particularly in the pharma services space. The firms saw that Adare was an asset with significant technical capability, deep customer relationships, and a strong vision to be a differentiated, technology-driven CDMO. We believe that under THL and Frazier’s leadership, Adare will achieve that vision and prove itself as an end-to-end CDMO partner to pharmaceutical companies.

What is the strategic direction of Adare?

Overall, in the pharmaceutical industry, there is a growing trend toward outsourcing, and it will continue to grow into the future. Manufacturers that have strong capabilities, technologies and unique solutions to solve complex problems will be selected as partners. Adare fits into that profile. Adare’s proprietary technology and capabilities make it well positioned to serve even the most complex needs in the drug development space. It has tremendous experience in bringing products to market. Our patented technologies solve the most complex problems, allowing us to develop and manufacture transformative medicines. That is what was exciting for all of us to make an investment in Adare. It has the potential to be a mainstream CDMO, which was not done by the previous ownership.

How will Adare’s acquisition of Orbis Biosciences enhance the company’s offering?

Our investment in Orbis provided Adare an entryway into long-acting injectables, a space the company had its eye on for a long time. Orbis offers complementary capabilities to Adare’s capabilities in the oral space. Through our acquisition of Orbis, we have expanded the solutions we can offer our customers to include oral liquid for extended release and taste masked formulations and, most exciting, injectable forms.

How is Adare addressing the issue of poor insolubility in oral drug delivery?

With our Biorise™ technology we have been one of the pioneers in this area. In recent years we focused more on taste masking, controlled release, and orally disintegrating tablets, however with our renewed focus on pharma service and as a technology-driven CDMO, we have been adding more capabilities in the solubility enhancement area, including the Optimµm® technology from the Orbis acquisition. Today, we can help patients take less drug due to an optimized solubility profile or provide them the flexibility to take a drug with or without food.

Can you provide an overview of ADARE BIOME? What do you see as the promise of the microbiome as an emerging field?

Today, Adare Biome develops solutions for Human and Animal health and nutrition. We have just hired a new leader to oversee that business and accelerate growth, with greater focus on providing solutions in the area of postbiotics. We have a huge presence in the European market, and we are now trying to expand and partner with companies in North America where we see a huge potential for growth. Overall, we think that the experience and solutions we offer can create significant value for a multitude of different companies. We are adding talent and investing capital in this business to further boost our capabilities. Our goal is to become a premium microbiome supplier.

What is your outlook on Massachusetts as a life sciences cluster looking forward?

Pharma has a huge R&D presence in the Massachusetts area, and most of it is driven by talent availability arising from the ecosystem. That is the key aspect of its attractiveness. While it has abundant opportunities, it also has challenges. It is hard to find talent in the Boston area due to the fierce competition. At the end of the day, it is all about where people are, and where they want to be. With the number of universities and resources that are out there, it will remain a very attractive place for pharma R&D. However, given some of the cost challenges, you will see other areas develop. At Adare, we see our markets (Ohio, Kansas, New Jersey) as attractive markets to recruit talent and places that people will be excited to plant roots and create meaningful lives.