Interview: Clinigen’s CEO Peter George on the company’s record growth

If there is one pharma company bucking the trend of shaky financial results it is the Clinigen Group. The UK-based specialty pharma company’s maiden results reported a 49% increase in group revenue over the previous period and since its IPO last year. The Pharma Letter’s Sophie Flowers went to meet chief executive Peter George to find out what the company is doing right.

Compared to most pharma companies Clinigen has an unusual business model, but it seems to be working perfectly for chief executive Peter George. The former Penn Pharma CEO took the reins in June 2010 when the merger of two smaller businesses formed the Clinigen Group (LSE: CLIN), headquartered in Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire. It combined Keats Healthcare, now Clinigen Clinical Trials Supply (CTS), and Clinigen Healthcare, a supplier of unlicensed medicines largely into the UK with a turnover of about £20 million ($32.2 million), which is now Clinigen GAP, the group’s Global Access Programs division. Together with Clinigen Pharma, formed in 2010 and now called Clinigen Specialty Pharmaceuticals (SP), it formed the Clinigen Group comprising of three distinct but complementary divisions of the company. The catalyst for this merger was the antiviral Foscavir (foscarnet sodium), acquired from AstraZeneca in 2010. It became the model for a successful transaction; having earned £4.5 million a year with AstraZeneca, in Clinigen’s hands it has become their lead product, growing more than five-fold over the last three years.