ALZA Corporation is a pharmaceutical company founded in 1968 by Dr. Alejandro Zaffaroni. In May 2001, ALZA was acquired by Johnson & Johnson in a stock-for-stock transaction worth 10.5 billion dollars.
ALZA has developed and marketed many successful drug delivery platforms including:
Alza developed a line of delivery vehicles, including skin patches, tiny pumps inside tablets, and other controlled-release systems, that made drugs work better by maintaining an ideal dosage for a longer period of time.
When Mario arrived, Alza was still reeling from the wild ride it took on the back of the short-lived explosion in nicotine patches, one of which Alza developed for Marion Merrell Dow.
Alza's market capitalization zoomed as high as $4 billion at the beginning of that fad, then its stock collapsed in 1992, when follow-on orders fell off and proposed Clinton health-care reforms frightened many companies into pulling back on "luxury" projects such as improved drug delivery.
Alza turned a corner last month, when it won preliminary Food and Drug Administration approval to sell Concerta, a timed-release version of a generic standby for treating hyperactivity in children and adolescents.
Alza's Concerta is designed to give a continuous dose of the drug for 12 hours, allowing parents to control the distribution by giving one dose in the morning.
Alza hopes to get Concerta on the market before the beginning of the September school year, which is likely to be more than a year before other competing products from Celgene (CELG:Nasdaq - news), Eli Lilly (LLY:NYSE - news) and Cephalon (CEPH:Nasdaq - news) could reach the market.
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