Novalar Pharmaceuticals

About Novalar Pharmaceuticals

Novalar Pharmaceuticals, Inc. was a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing oral healthcare solutions for dental professionals. The company's premier product was OraVerse®, a first-in-class local dental anesthetic reversal agent. The President and CEO was Donna Janson.

The company's core product, OraVerse (phentolamine mesylate), was developed to reverse the lingering soft-tissue numbness of the lip and tongue that follows routine dental procedures where a local anesthetic with a vasoconstrictor is used. This allowed patients to more quickly return to normal sensation and function, reducing the recovery time by approximately half. The active ingredient, phentolamine mesylate, is a vasodilator that accelerates the diffusion of the anesthetic away from the injection site and into the cardiovascular system. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved OraVerse in May 2008 as a safe and effective treatment for adults and children aged six and older.

Novalar raised a total of $53.2 million over several funding rounds, including a $30 million Series D round in 2007 led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) to support the U.S. launch of the product. Other significant investors included Domain Associates, SR One, and Montreux Equity Partners. The company officially launched OraVerse in February 2009 at the Chicago Dental Society Midwinter Meeting.

In March 2011, Novalar announced that it had entered into an agreement with Septodont, a global leader in dental pain control products, for the acquisition of OraVerse. Under the agreement, Septodont took over all sales, marketing, and regulatory responsibilities for the product. This transaction integrated OraVerse into Septodont's extensive portfolio, which includes the widely used anesthetic Septocaine, providing it with established distribution channels and marketing resources.