Fort Worth firm part of $40M capital infusion for Leading Pharma

Leading Pharma LLC, a privately-owned generic pharmaceutical company that manufactures, markets, and distributes products to drug chains, wholesalers, and other channels, announced it has completed a financing transaction for $40 million of growth capital, part of which involves a Fort Worth firm.

The transaction was led by Signet Healthcare Partners in addition to Crestline Investors with other investors comprised of Cane Investment Partners and existing Leading Pharma members. Concurrently, Nikhil Puri, managing director at Signet Healthcare Partners, and Chris Semple, managing director at Fort Worth-based Crestline Investors, will join the board of directors of Leading Pharma’s parent company. The growth capital will be used to support Leading Pharma’s research and development (R&D) investments in expanding the company’s diverse pipeline of generic products and to repay existing indebtedness.

“This investment allows us to accelerate the development of our robust pipeline to build a more comprehensive product portfolio,” said Ronald Gold, co-founder and CEO of Leading Pharma. “We are excited to partner with prudent investors who have experience in the pharmaceutical industry and believe in our business model as well as our ability to develop and market new generic drugs.”,

Since the acquisition of Excellium Pharmaceutical Inc. in 2014, Leading Pharma has evolved from exclusively outsourcing product development work into a vertically-integrated generic pharmaceutical company with internal R&D capabilities. The company operates a 53,000 square foot manufacturing plant dedicated to oral solid pharmaceuticals.

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“Under the leadership of industry veterans Ron Gold and Rasik Gondalia, Leading Pharma is well-positioned to capitalize on its development strategy as the company has built an attractive pipeline of diverse, difficult-to-formulate products,” said Chris Semple, managing director at Crestline Investors. “We look forward to continued growth at the company under Ron and Rasik, who have both successfully founded and exited generic pharmaceutical companies in prior ventures.”

Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP acted as legal counsel for Leading Pharma and Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP acted as legal counsel for Crestline and Signet. Atigun Capital Partners provided consulting support to Leading Pharma and the investors during the transaction.

www.leadingpharma.com