Baron Funds Comments on Pacira Pharmaceuticals

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Aug 10, 2016

Pacira Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:PCRX) is a specialty pharmaceutical company that sells an injectable drug for local post-surgical analgesia (localized pain relief) called EXPAREL. In the fourth quarter of 2015, Pacira reached a very favorable resolution with the FDA concerning certain issues which had previously impeded its ability to market its drug to hospital customers. We re-established our investment in the company in the third quarter of 2015 as it appeared from public reports that the company was making significant progress on this front (and the FDA removed the warning letter from its site in September). Shares have been weak in the second quarter of 2016 as Pacira has not yet seen a re-acceleration in the growth of the drug (management has always guided to a late 2016 effect). In our opinion, Pacira still retains its large multi-billion dollar market opportunity, and we should start to see accelerating revenues by year-end.

From Baron Discovery Fund's second quarter 2016 commentary.