Kazimi on Cumberland Pharma

Cumberland Pharmaceuticals Founder, Chairman and CEO A. J. Kazimi (at left) told executives assembled for Owen GSM Professor Germain Boer's entrepreneurs breakfast this morning that one reason refused to withdraw his IPO from the SEC shelf was that his research showed that companies that did that never came back for a public offering. Instead, often because of cash woes, they sold, took private equity, or somesuch. Kazimi said Cumberland was doing fine on cash, and could afford to wait the reopening on the IPO window, and would need investment from the IPO to fuel its longer-term product-acquisitions strategy. The company made a record 20 amendments to its shelf filing, while waiting. Although the company attracted $85MM in gross proceeds and netted more than $75MM from its IPO Aug. 10, 2009, Kazimi said today that his priority is scaling-up his operations around Cumberland three current products, rather than immediately rushing to "drop in a fourth product." Once the IPO was imminent, Kazimi explained, he personally made about 100 presentations to investors in five days, including pitches he was obliged to make by phone during plane flights. Speakers during Boer's breakfasts are speaking off the record, unless they give permission to be quoted. Kazimi agreed VNC could write about his remarks. Kazimi's CPIX (NASDAQ) was trading at about $14 this morning.

IPO candidate Cumberland Pharma

Yesterday, Nashville-based Cumberland Pharmaceuticals filed the 20th Amendment to its shelved two-year-old IPO filing with the SEC. With rumblings of the IPO mart coming back to life (e.g., Dollar Gen), Cumberland may soon stop vamping off-stage and let loose 5 million shares or more, by which it hopes to net about $89 million-plus. The company's net income in 2008 was $4.8 million, on revenue of $35.1 million. The raise, if and when, would provide capital for beefing-up its sales ranks, acquisitions, product development, and commercial introduction of Caldolor, which is Cumberland's IV formulation of ibuprofen. It can market the product in the U.S. In Canada and Australia, third parties are pursuing regulatory and licensing approval. That's Cumberland CEO A. J. Kazimi, at left.

Cumberland Pharma's Caldolor gets FDA nod

Cumberland Pharmaceuticals announced yesterday its Caldolor injectable for treatment of pain and fever won FDA approval for sale in the U.S., following a priority review. For the moment, apparently the product has no peer. The Cumberland drug is a formulation of ibuprofen. In addition to a statement by CP CEO A. J. Kazimi, yesterday's press release included a quote from Vanderbilt University Assistant Vice Chancellor for Research Ken Holroyd (at left), who said the product is "welcomed." Vanderbilt partners with Cumberland in ownership of a local incubator, Cumberland Emerging Technologies. Holroyd serves on CET's board of directors. This week, Vanderbilt Vice Chancellor-Health Affairs Jeff Balser issued a new statement of Vanderbilt guidelines regarding averting conflicts of interest that might arise in relationships between University personnel and pharmaceutical companies, or other allies.