Partners Group Will Become New Majority Shareholder of Wedgewood Pharmacy.

Swedesboro NJ—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Wedgewood Pharmacy has signed a definitive purchase agreement with Partners Group, on behalf of its clients, which will replace New Harbor Capital as its majority shareholder after the transaction closes in 2021. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Marcy A. Bliss, CEO of Wedgewood Pharmacy, said: “While we have achieved excellent results under New Harbor’s ownership, we are very excited to collaborate with Partners Group going forward. They are deeply experienced professionals who have extensive healthcare and animal-health experience. A new board of directors will infuse fresh ideas and fresh capital to support our team to fully realize our goals. We have ambitious plans to continue to respond to veterinarians and the needs of their patients. The types of investments will include:

• New product development, ensuring access to backordered medications, as well as personalized medicine to treat our most vulnerable (and finicky) animal patients.
• Process and technology improvements that make Wedgewood Pharmacy the easiest to do business with.
• Increased production at our FDA-registered 503B Outsourcing Facility to ensure adequate availability of medication for office use.
• Logistics and operational investments that will speed delivery of medication to patients and prescribers."

Chris Russell, Managing Director, Partners Group, added: “Partners Group takes a thematic approach to investing, and Wedgewood Pharmacy's model of caring for animal patients through the provision of specialty healthcare fits well within this framework. We pursue resilient, growing businesses benefiting from transformative trends, including the elevated importance of pets in our families. We look forward to working with Wedgewood Pharmacy on building further value in the business on behalf of all its stakeholders.”

Lincoln International LLC led the transaction for Wedgewood Pharmacy, with Reed Smith LLP and RSM International acting as advisors to the company. Ropes & Gray LLP and KPMG International Limited acted as advisors to Partners Group.

Wedgewood Pharmacy is the largest compounding pharmacy devoted to animal health in the U.S. Compounding is the long-established tradition in pharmacy practice that enables practitioners to prescribe and patients to take medicines that are specially prepared by pharmacists to meet patients' individual needs. A growing number of patients have unique health and compliance needs that off-the-shelf prescription medicines cannot meet. For them, customized, compounded medications prescribed or ordered by licensed physicians or veterinarians and prepared safely by trained, licensed compounding pharmacists and pharmacy technicians are the only way to better health. 

Compounded medications are created and prepared in state-regulated pharmacies when mass-manufactured drugs are not, according to a prescriber, available or are not appropriate for a patient. Wedgewood Pharmacy’s 503B Outsourcing Facility, Wedgewood Connect, manufactures medications under FDA’s modified cGMP standards. 

Today’s Wedgewood Pharmacy grew from a local community pharmacy to become one of the largest compounding pharmacies in the United States. It is the leading pharmacy brand in animal health, recognized by 99% of veterinarians, and used by 8 in 10 veterinarians within the past year. It also prepares compounded medications for the human-health medical specialties of Addiction Medicine, Urology, and Ophthalmology. The company serves more than 50,000 prescribers and hundreds of thousands of patients throughout the U.S. every year. 

George (late) and Lucy Malmberg, both pharmacists, purchased Wedgewood Pharmacy in 1981, the year after the pharmacy opened. In June 2016, New Harbor Capital became the majority shareholder of the company. In 2018, the company acquired Diamondback Drugs. In 2020, the company purchased and began production at Wedgewood Connect, an FDA-registered 503B Outsourcing Facility, in San Jose, California. In the same year, the company acquired Wildlife Pharmaceuticals and ZooPharm, in Colorado and Wyoming, respectively. In early 2021, New Harbor Capital will complete the sale of its majority interest in the company to Partners Group. 

Wedgewood Pharmacy is accredited by the Pharmacy Compounding Accreditation Board (PCAB®) for compliance with PCAB and other nationally recognized compounding standards. PCAB was formed by eight of the nation’s leading pharmacy associations and is a service of Accreditation Commission for Health Care. As a third-party accreditation organization, PCAB has developed the highest national standards against which providers are measured to demonstrate their ability to effectively and efficiently deliver quality compounded medications to consumers. 

Wedgewood Pharmacy employs more than 700 people.

Partners Group is a leading global private-markets investment manager. Since 1996, the firm has invested more than USD 135 billion in private equity, private real estate, private debt, and private infrastructure on behalf of its clients globally. Partners Group is a committed, responsible investor and aims to create broad stakeholder impact through its active ownership and development of growing businesses, attractive real estate, and essential infrastructure. With more than USD 96 billion in assets under management as of 30 June 2020, Partners Group serves a broad range of institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and private individuals globally. The firm employs more than 1,500 diverse professionals across 20 offices worldwide and has regional headquarters in Baar-Zug, Switzerland; Denver, USA; and Singapore. It has been listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange since 2006 (symbol: PGHN). For more information, please visit http://www.partnersgroup.com or follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter. 

Partners Group's private equity business has an established track record of investing in leading businesses with development potential to generate attractive returns for its clients. With entrepreneurial governance at the heart of its approach, Partners Group’s private-equity business aims to build high-performing boards and works together with management teams on targeted value creation initiatives. These enable long-term, sustainable growth to the benefit of all stakeholders. Partners Group's private-equity business has directly invested in more than 240 businesses since inception and today has USD 45 billion in assets under management.

Wedgewood

Marcy A. Bliss

Chief Executive Officer

MBliss@wedgewoodpharmacy.com

856-832-1303

PR Firm

David Kirk

DavidKirk@thePRguy.com

480-270-9631

Partners Group

Clare Burrows

clare.burrows@partnersgroup.com

212-908-2708