Jazz Pharmaceuticals in Palo Alto

Jazz Pharmaceuticals is one of the larger drug companies to come out of Palo Alto in this century. It was started in 2003 by a group of executives who had worked together at ALZA, the drug delivery company founded on Page Mill Road in 1968. They set up on Porter Drive in Stanford Research Park, built the company around a narcolepsy drug and took it public four years later.

In 2012 a merger moved the global headquarters to Dublin, Ireland. The US operating company still lists a Porter Drive address in 2026. This profile covers the founding, the products that shaped the company, the move to Ireland and what remains in Palo Alto.

ALZA roots

Johnson & Johnson bought ALZA in 2001. Within two years a group of its senior people had left to start something of their own. Jazz's 2007 prospectus says the executive management team had previously worked together at ALZA. Bruce Cozadd, a cofounder, became the company's longtime chairman and chief executive. Samuel R. Saks was chief executive at the time of the public offering.

The plan drew on what they had learned at ALZA. Instead of hunting for brand new molecules, Jazz described its strategy in early filings as applying new formulations and drug delivery technologies to known drug compounds, then building its own sales force to sell them. That was close to ALZA's own playbook, which focused on how a drug reaches the body. Our Syntex profile traces the same family tree back another generation, since ALZA's founder had come from Syntex.

Founding in 2003

According to its 2007 prospectus, Jazz was incorporated in California in March 2003 and reincorporated in Delaware in January 2004. Its early filings list the executive office at 3180 Porter Drive, Palo Alto. Porter Drive was already home to two other drug companies covered on this site: CV Therapeutics at 3172 and the former Incyte headquarters at 3160. Our Stanford Research Park guide explains how companies lease land there from Stanford.

Xyrem and Orphan Medical

The deal that defined Jazz came in June 2005, when it bought Orphan Medical, a Minnesota company. With it came Xyrem, a liquid form of sodium oxybate for narcolepsy. Xyrem had first been approved by the FDA in July 2002 to treat cataplexy, sudden attacks of muscle weakness in people with narcolepsy. In November 2005 the FDA added excessive daytime sleepiness to its uses.

Xyrem became the company's main source of revenue for years. Wikipedia reports that in 2017 it accounted for 74 percent of Jazz's net product sales. It also brought legal trouble. In 2007 the company pleaded guilty to a felony charge related to illegal marketing of Xyrem for unapproved uses.

Other early products and deals included:

• Antizol. An antidote for antifreeze and methanol poisoning, also from Orphan Medical.
• Luvox CR. A controlled release version of an older drug for obsessive compulsive disorder and social anxiety disorder, licensed from Solvay in January 2007 and approved on February 28, 2008.

Jazz went public on Nasdaq in 2007. Its 2008 annual report described a specialty sales force of about 200 people and a focus on neurology and psychiatry.

Why sodium oxybate was a big deal

Narcolepsy is a long term sleep disorder. People with it feel overwhelming sleepiness during the day. Many also have cataplexy, sudden muscle weakness often triggered by laughter or surprise. Sodium oxybate, the active ingredient in Xyrem, is the sodium salt of gamma hydroxybutyrate, or GHB, a compound the body makes naturally. Taken at night, it helps consolidate sleep and reduces daytime symptoms.

GHB is also a drug of abuse. Because of that, Xyrem has been sold only through a tightly restricted distribution program run through a central pharmacy, with prescriber and patient enrollment. That system shaped Jazz's business. It needed a small, specialized sales force rather than the large teams that sell mass market drugs. Xyrem's importance grew over the next decade: Wikipedia reports $1.187 billion in Xyrem net product sales in 2017. Jazz later developed Xywav, a version with much less sodium, for the same patients.

The Azur merger and the move to Dublin

On September 19, 2011, Jazz announced a merger with Azur Pharma, an Irish specialty drug company with US operations in Philadelphia. The deal closed in January 2012. The combined company, Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc, took Azur's base in Dublin as its headquarters. Wikipedia describes the new structure as a tax inversion to Ireland. Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Inc. carried on as the US operating company.

From Dublin, Jazz grew through a series of acquisitions:

Jazz also sold some products along the way, including its women's health business to Meda in 2012 and the sleep drug Sunosi to Axsome Therapeutics in a deal announced in 2022.

Jazz in Palo Alto today

The Palo Alto connection did not end with the move to Ireland. In 2026 the company's website gives the address of Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Inc. as 3170 Porter Drive, Palo Alto, California 94304. The same page lists current US products such as Xywav, a lower sodium oxybate medicine. Rylaze, a leukemia drug, is on the same list.

Jazz describes itself today as focused on rare diseases, with marketed medicines for sleep disorders, epilepsies and cancers. The company is listed on Nasdaq.

Timeline

Jazz in the Palo Alto biotech story

Jazz is a third generation Palo Alto drug company. Syntex brought pharmaceutical research to the research park in 1959. ALZA grew out of Syntex in 1968. Jazz grew out of ALZA in 2003. Each one recruited from the last and leased land a few blocks away. For the investors who back companies like these today, see our guide to biotech and health investors. For the wider history, see Silicon Valley history and the companies hub.

The Jazz story also shows how Palo Alto's drug companies tend to stay close to home even after they grow. Jazz's founders could have started anywhere in the Bay Area. They chose a street a few minutes from where ALZA began, close to Stanford's medical school and to the lawyers, bankers and recruiters who already served the local life science companies. Two decades and a move to Ireland later, the US company still keeps its Palo Alto address.

Visitors can pass the office on a bike ride from the California Avenue Caltrain station. View it from the street only.

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