Savient Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (SAVN)

Savient Pharmaceuticals was a specialty biopharmaceutical company best known for Krystexxa (pegloticase), a treatment for chronic gout that does not respond to standard therapy. Krystexxa is a pegylated uricase enzyme, given by infusion, that breaks down uric acid. Savient based its future almost entirely on the drug after selling its older product lines. The company was located in East Brunswick, New Jersey.

Savient began as Bio-Technology General Corp., a biotech founded in 1980 with research operations in Israel. Bio-Technology General made recombinant proteins such as human growth hormone. In 2003 it renamed itself Savient Pharmaceuticals, and in the following years it spun off or sold its other units to concentrate on pegloticase.

The FDA approved Krystexxa in September 2010, after earlier delays, and Savient launched it in the United States that December. Sales were far below expectations because of the drug's infusion requirements, safety warnings, and limited use among rheumatologists. At the same time Savient carried heavy convertible debt and spent a lot on marketing. It looked for a buyer without success, cut costs, and its stock price fell below $1.

On October 14, 2013, Savient filed for Chapter 11 in Delaware. Nasdaq suspended trading on October 17, 2013, and the stock later traded over the counter as SVNTQ. In December 2013 the court approved selling Krystexxa and Savient's other assets to Crealta Pharmaceuticals for about $120.4 million, and shareholders recovered nothing. Krystexxa later passed to Horizon Pharma and then to Amgen. Savient's main ticker was SVNT, and this page may refer to it under a variant symbol.