At Reliant, Mario Tries for Alza II

Reliant Pharmaceuticals was created as an alternative to Big Pharma in marketing primary care products. But in-licensing market-ready products is expensive and primary-care sales forces expensive to maintain. With new CEO Ernie Mario, the company has now raised a huge amount of new money and will accelerate its efforts to in-license development stage products--a higher risk strategy, but the only way to ultimately create the margins necessary for sustainability.