How it started
History
Horizon Therapeutics was founded in 2005 in Illinois focused on the development of Duexa, a formulation of ibuprofen combined with famotidine. Nitec Pharma AG was founded in Switzerland in 2004 as a spin-off from Merck KGaA. In 2010, Horizon and Nitec merged to form a combined company Horizon Pharma Inc. to be led by Timothy Walbert to support the launch of Lodotra and Duexa. Horizon IPOed in 2011 raising $49.5 million.
In 2014, Horizon executed a tax inversion to move its legal headquarters to Ireland to avail itself of Ireland's low tax rates and beneficial corporate tax system.
In October 2014, the company acquired the US sales and marketing rights to the osteoarthritis drug Pennsaid from Nuvo Research for $45 million. In March 2015, the company acquired Hyperion Therapeutics for $1.1 billion, increasing Horizon's orphan disease drug portfolio. In December, the company acquired Crealta Holdings for $510 million. In September 2016, the company announced the acquisition of Raptor Pharmaceutical for $800 million, adding Procysbi and Quinsair to its rare drug portfolio. In 2017, Horizon announced its intention to acquire River Vision Development Corp for $145 million and to continue the development of teprotumumab.
On May 2, 2019, shareholders of the company approved the change of the company's name from Horizon Pharma plc to Horizon Therapeutics plc. In January 2020 – after showing very strong PhIII data – it was approved for the treatment of thyroid eye disease (TED), a rare vision-threatening disease that previously had no FDA-approved treatment options. Horizon believed it could reach $1 billion peak sales in the US alone.
In February 2021, the business announced it would acquire Viela Bio Inc for around $3 billion ($53 per share).
From Wikipedia’s article on Horizon Therapeutics, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3