Jazz Pharmaceuticals and Irish-based Azur Pharma Limited have combined to create a new speciality company.

The combined company – which will continue as Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc– will be incorporated in Ireland and has several products currently marketed in the US.

Seamus Mulligan, Chairman and CEO, Azur Pharma, says the merger creates a company that has “greater operational and financial resources” to enable its strategy of acquiring and developing speciality products.

The company markets ten products in the US within the central nervous system (CNS) and women’s health areas. Including Xyrem, Luvox CR, Prialt, FazaClo and Elestrin, revenues are now expected to reach more than $475 million in the first 12 months following the completion of the deal.

The combined company would also have a number of pipeline of lower-risk development programmes, including line extensions for the clozapine franchise and various other branded women’s health products.

"This significant transaction represents a compelling strategic fit, given our companies' closely aligned missions of identifying and developing products that address unmet patient needs and can be efficiently marketed through a specialty commercial infrastructure," said Bruce Cozadd, who will become the Chairman and CEO of Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc.

The FDA has approved a once-per-day combined pill by Gilead and Johnson & Johnson for the treatment of HIV in the US.

Complera has been approved as a first-line treatment for patients who have not been previously treated for HIV.

The pill combines Gilead’s drug Truvada (emtracitabine and tenofovir) and Johnson & Johnson’s Edurant (rilpivirine).

Both drugs are already approved as part of a drug cocktail or combination HIV therapy, but the combined pill is now approved as a stand-alone regimen.

Further manufacturing, development and marketing are set to be headed by Gilead in the EU, Canada, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand.

Complera is the second once-per-day drug intended for untreated HIV, approved in 2006. The first was Atripla, which is marketed by Gilead and Bristol-Myers Squibb.