Jazz CEO Bruce Cozadd campaigned for 6 months to buy GW Pharma. A 90% premium sealed the deal — along with $17.6M in ‘retention’ incentives

Jazz CEO Bruce Cozadd didn’t beat around the bush.

In his first video meeting with GW Pharma chief Justin Gover last July 8, he offered to pay $172 a share to get the company, which had beaten the odds in getting its remarkable cannabinoid drug Epidiolex across the regulatory finish line for epilepsy. GW’s stock closed at $129 that day.