Company Profile

In April 2005, Orphan Medical was acquired by CA-based Jazz Pharmaceuticals, a developer of pharmaceutical products to commercialize in targeted therapeutic markets. With major focus to sleep disorders, pain and other central nervous system (CNS) disorders, Orphan Medical had been focused on drugs for inadequately treated or uncommon diseases. Taking advantage of incentives offered under the Orphan Drug Act of 1983, the company developed drugs for rare diseases and conditions affecting small patient populations, a market often neglected by large pharmaceutical companies. Orphan Medical kept costs low by licensing promising drugs from others, then conducting clinical trials to obtain FDA marketing approval. The company marketed only a limieted of these products but they included drugs to treat the rare genetic disorder homocystinuria (Cystadane) and meningeal leukemia or lymphocytic lymphoma (Elliotts B Solution).