LongueVue Capital Partners ("LVC"), a partnership-driven, operator-centric private equity firm based in New Orleans with approximately $500 million of assets under management, announced today that Geoff Glass and Pete Allen have joined the firm as healthcare Operating Partners. Geoff, a seasoned pharma services executive, will focus on the life science space. Pete, a healthcare executive with broad reaching experience, will focus on medical devices and related contract services as well as healthcare supply chain services. The additions of both Pete and Geoff reiterate LVC's commitment to the healthcare industry, which is one of the firm's largest investment verticals.
Geoff brings a wealth of experience in the life science and pharmaceutical space. Geoff began his career in life science consulting at Ernst & Young before jumping into the industry at ICN Pharmaceuticals, which eventually became Valeant Pharmaceuticals. Since then, Geoff has held senior executive roles at Valeant Pharmaceuticals and Patheon across both sales and operations functions. Before becoming President of Patheon's Banner Life Sciences business unit, Geoff served as the Executive Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing. More recently, Geoff was CEO of Sancilio Pharmaceuticals and has served on a number of life science boards, including Locus Biosciences. Geoff is currently Chairman of the Board of Avadel Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:AVDL). Across all his roles, Geoff has been instrumental in developing and growing companies with differentiated service and/or product offerings.
Pete has an impressive background as a senior healthcare executive across a variety of healthcare verticals with specific expertise in P&L management, business development, sales, marketing, distribution management, regulatory affairs, political lobbying, group purchasing, research and development, manufacturing, M&A integration, and new product/business launches. Most recently, Pete was the Executive Vice President of sourcing operations at Vizient (from 2010 to 2019), the largest group purchasing organization in the United States with over 3,500 employees. Prior to Vizient, Pete served as Vice President and General Manager of the infusion therapy division at Becton Dickinson (NYSE: BDX), a $650 million business unit. Pete also held numerous sales positions at Kimberly-Clark Healthcare, ultimately serving as Director of Global Strategic Marketing. Through his entire career, Pete has led growth transformations and built established, defendable market-leading healthcare companies.
Ryan Nagim, LVC Partner who helps lead the firm's healthcare investment strategy, commented, "Both Geoff and Pete have deep operating experience that will serve as a tremendous resource to our firm and expand LVC's ability to create meaningful value within our healthcare portfolio. Specifically, Geoff and Pete will work with LVC and our management team partners to enhance each company's value proposition through operational improvement, technological enhancement, customer and service-line expansion, synergistic add-on acquisitions, and prudent deployment of financial and human capital. We are incredibly excited to launch these partnerships."
Rick Rees, LVC's Co-Founder and Managing Partner, added, "In working with Pete and Geoff, it is clear that both place the same value in partnerships as we do. Both are tremendous cultural fits with LVC, making them ideal partners to help guide our healthcare investments through the next phase of growth."
Within life sciences, LVC will focus on companies that have differentiated capabilities in contract development, manufacturing and lab services; ingredient or equipment suppliers essential to drug manufacturing or delivery; and value-added service providers or suppliers to the cell and gene therapy market, including cold chain logistics. LVC will also target businesses with niche product or service offerings within the pharmaceutical, biopharma, nutritional, and/or consumer health sectors as well as mission-critical software and quality and compliance offerings serving the life science sector.
Geoff noted, "Over the past three years, I've developed a deep relationship with the LVC team. I'm thrilled to formally join the team in a position where I can add value to scalable companies in a highly dynamic and rapidly changing sector. While I've had the pleasure of working with many private equity firms over the years, I remain extremely impressed with LVC's culture, and their unique operator-centric and partnership-driven approach to investing."
Pete will support expanding LVC's healthcare portfolio in the packaging and supply chain segments, low- to mid-tech medical device segments, and medical equipment capital management and disposal segments. Pete will also focus on opportunities that reduce costs to the provider community.
Pete commented, "I've developed a strong relationship with the LVC team over the past few years and have worked with a number of their portfolio companies. I am impressed by the LVC team's partnership approach and their ability to drive sustainable growth within their healthcare portfolio. I am extremely excited to partner with LVC and leverage my multi-disciplinary healthcare expertise to expand the firm's presence across multiple healthcare sectors."