Aqua Pharmaceuticals bought by Illinois private equity firm

An Illinois private equity firm has acquired a controlling stake in dermatology therapeutics company Aqua Pharmaceuticals.

Lake Forest, Ill.-based Roundtable Health Partners didn’t reveal the cost of its debt funding to 50-employee Aqua in (pdf) a statement. Aqua will use the new funding “to finance growth opportunities.”

Aqua, which has seen revenue grow 20-fold since its founding in 2004, is the sixth investment from Roundtable’s $500 million second fund. Roundtable targets companies with annual earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $10 million to $50 million, Portfolio.com reported.

As its name implies, Roundtable invests only in healthcare companies. Its portfolio companies include ACI Medical Devices, which develops vascular-access and patient-monitoring devices, and Aspen Surgical. Roundtable’s investors include a number of universities, including Notre Dame, Northwestern University and University of Chicago, and companies such as 3M Co.

Aqua co-founders Jay Gooding and Craig Ballaron will retain ownership stakes in the firm and remain in their positions of CEO and president, according to the statement.

Aqua’s products include the brands Monodox and Cordran, which are intended for the treatment of ailments like acne and actinic keratosis — rough, scaly lesions that result from overexposure to the sun.

The acquisition may be a sign of private equity’s resurgence. In the second quarter, global private equity activity hit $43 billion, according to Thomson Reuters. That’s a 54-percent jump from the first quarter and a 148-percent spike from last year’s second quarter.

Healthcare is expected to remain an attractive target for private equity investment since financing is easier to come by relative to other sectors, Ernst & Young said.