Strategy

Our goal is to become a leading integrated specialty pharmaceutical company that develops and commercializes new products for significant markets in pain management. Key elements of our strategy to achieve this goal are:

Focus on pain management. The area of pain management offers attractive commercial opportunities in significant markets. According to a joint statement by the American Academy of Pain Medicine and the American Pain Society, pain is one of the most common reasons people consult a physician, yet it frequently is treated inadequately leading to enormous social cost in the form of lost productivity, needless suffering and excessive healthcare expenditures.

Use revenue from product sales to fund new product development and expand commercial infrastructure. We actively seek to maximize sales of Zipsor® and the Duet line of prescription prenatal vitamins, through our promotional efforts. We also generate revenue from our non-promoted products with limited sales and marketing costs. We have used, and expect to continue to use, revenue from sales of our marketed products to fund a significant portion of the development costs of our product candidates and the expansion of our sales and marketing infrastructure. We may selectively enter into collaboration, co-promotion, distribution, or other similar arrangements in situations where it may be advantageous to do so.

Effectively manage risks associated with new product development. We are directing our development efforts toward known drug compounds based on active pharmaceutical ingredients for which substantial efficacy and safety data or a significant history of usage exist related to our target indications. By developing improved formulations of existing drug compounds, instead of engaging in the development of new chemical entities, we believe that we can advance our product candidates more quickly and predictably through the development cycle. In particular, we believe that this approach to drug development will allow us to use the abbreviated development pathway of Section 505(b)(2) for most of our product candidates, which can result in substantially less time and cost in bringing a new drug to market. We are actively pursuing strategic acquisitions and in-licensing opportunities to augment our development pipeline.

Employ proprietary technologies in the development of newly formulated versions of existing drug compounds. We are experienced in applying proprietary formulation technologies in the development of new formulations of existing drug compounds with a view to offering additional clinical benefits »