Jazz slashes expected IPO price, follows “date rape” controversy

Jazz Pharmaceuticals, the generally unexciting specialty-pharmaceutical maker that hoped to raise $179.4 million in an IPO, has collided with reality.

The Palo Alto, Calif. company today slashed its expected IPO price by a fifth.

We’ve written before about Jazz and its wildly overrated strategy of salvaging poorly performing or cast-off drugs from other companies. David Hamilton, of VentureBeat LifeSciences, is on the trail, noting other worrying signs, such as the fact that the active ingredient in Jazz’s lead drug, a narcolepsy treatment called Xyrem, is derived from gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB), a “club drug” linked to overdose deaths and use in date rape.