needle-free drug delivery technology that was being developed for use with sumatriptan, a fast-acting migraine drug, by Hayward, CA-based Aradigm. Hawley, who was familiar with migraine drugs from his years at Glaxo, led the acquisition of the Aradigm technology. Aradigm’s Stephen Farr, who had led development of the technology at Aradigm, joined Zogenix as a co-founder, president, and chief operating officer.
“It’s not that unusual, really,” Hawley says. Garner “is kind of a serial entrepreneur. He often picks the management team first… It starts small, and if you’re in the pharmaceutical business it quickly gets to be a very large amount of money.”
Despite Hawley’s modesty, Zogenix didn’t really start small. Its Series A round came to a whopping $60 million, with Clarus Ventures, Domain Associates, BA Venture Partners (now Scale Venture Partners), Thomas, McNerney & Partners, and Life Science Angels chipping in; the round later expanded to $78 million. Zogenix filed for an IPO in 2008, but market conditions led the company to cancel those plans. That necessitated last December’s Series B round of $71 million, which was extended in July to include an additional $15 million in equity and $35 million in debt financing. Additional investors include Abingworth Management, Chicago Growth Partners, with Oxford Finance Corp. and Silicon Valley Bank providing the debt facility.
“Actually, our story hasn’t changed since we formed the company, which is something we’re proud of,” Hawley says. They first planned to validate the technology now being marketed as Sumavel DosePro and win FDA approval as a
