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Snapshot: Bain talks QuVa expansion

Bain Capital principal Jeff Schwartz tells Private Equity International that the firm’s decision to build the QuVa Pharma platform that manufactures sterile pharmaceutical products for hospitals, was a response to changes to FDA regulation.

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Following the formation by Bain Capital of QuVa Pharma in August with equity from Bain Capital Fund XI, the firm has been building a sterile compounding pharmacy services platform that repackages pharmaceuticals into specific doses to supply to hospitals. As part of its expansion, QuVa acquired a manufacturing facility from Healix in August and another facility, Unique Pharmaceuticals in early November. Bain Capital principal Jeff Schwartz tells Private Equity International about its strategy for growth. 

What are your plans for the expansion?

We plan to continue to grow and expand through three strategies. First, we have a sizeable facility we bought in Sugar Land, Texas, from our acquisition from Healix. We are in the process of increasing our capabilities and scale at the facility through investments in both people and equipment.

Second, we continue to look for additional acquisition opportunities of existing facilities that fit into our model, of delivering high quality and service to our hospital customers and enable us to expand our capacity and footprint. This happened through our recent acquisition of Unique Pharmaceuticals.

We are also actively looking at growing through building new facilities. There is a huge unmet need in the US that the company is focused on. Having acquisitions done so quickly in the first few months of forming QuVa gives us a lot of excitement about the company’s ability to grow.

Why did Bain decide to form QuVa?

We formed QuVa based on our observation that there’s a significant need and opportunity for the evolution for providing products to hospitals.

Several years ago there was a safety incident that led to increased FDA [US Food and Drug Administration] scrutiny in this space. The FDA created new rules and regulations, and in the industry there was an increased focus on safety and quality. That led us, through our observation and previous investing experience in health care and pharmaceuticals, to see a large opportunity to create a better platform out there to service hospitals needs in this space.