Stephen Mandel Initiates New Position in Horizon Pharma PLC (HZNP), Up 200% This Year

Earlier last week, Horizon Pharma PLC (NASDAQ:HZNP) improved its acquisition offer for Depomed Inc (NASDAQ:DEPO), with a new bid of $33.00 per share of the company. This bid indicates an increase of 12.80% from its previous offer for the small biopharmaceutical company, which rejected the earlier bid of $29.25.

The biopharmaceutical company announced estimated sales figures for its second quarter of net sales of $170 million to $172 million, expecting a growth of 160% as compared to the prior year period. In addition to record growth in net sales, Horizon Pharma PLC (NASDAQ:HZNP) has greatly increased its annual guidance for fiscal 2015, with the company now expecting net sales of $660 million to $680 million against previous guidance of $590 million to $610 million. Timothy P. Walbert, CEO of Horizon Pharma, said, “Our expected second quarter sales results significantly exceed expectations, driven by rapidly accelerating prescription growth in our primary care and specialty business units and the continued addition of new patients to ACTIMMUNE® and RAVICTI®.” Horizon Pharma will announce its second quarter financial results on August 7, 2015.

The hedge funds tracked at Insider Monkey held a bullish outlook for the shares of Horizon Pharma PLC (NASDAQ:HZNP) during the first quarter. The aggregate investments from hedge fund managers more than doubled to $1.23 billion at the end of the first quarter compared to investments of $597.56 million held three months earlier. However, as the value of shares more than doubled during the first quarter, there wasn’t actually much of an increase to their collective positions, despite the number of hedge fund managers investing in the company also jumping by 15 to 43 by the end of the quarter. James E. Flynn’s Deerfield Management was the largest shareholder of the company in our database, with 12.79 million shares valued at $332.23 million at the end of the first quarter. Kevin Kotler’s Broadfin Capital, and Healthcor Management LP, led by Arthur B Cohen and Joseph Healey, were among the other major investors of the company.

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