Thursday, March 26, 2015
Lexington, MA and Cincinnati, OH – MARCH 26, 2015 – Shire plc (LSE: SHP, NASDAQ: SHPG) and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center today announced a three-year, broad research collaboration for rare diseases. The goal of the collaboration is to discover and develop novel therapies to treat rare diseases with high unmet medical need combining Shire’s development and commercialization capabilities with Cincinnati Children’s research expertise. As a nationally ranked hospital, Cincinnati Children’s has expertise in many fields of research that align with Shire’s therapeutic areas of focus including, rare diseases, gastroenterology, nephrology and neurology. The partnership underscores Shire’s long-term commitment to bringing innovative therapies to patients living with rare diseases around the world.
“Shire is pleased to enter into this innovative collaboration with Cincinnati Children’s, which joins together leaders in industry and academia to advance pioneering research from the lab to the clinic,” said Dr. Philip J. Vickers, Global Head of Research and Development, Shire. “Shire has a deep commitment to patients with rare diseases, and our developmental expertise, combined with Cincinnati Children’s research capabilities, should enable an acceleration of our discovery and development efforts."
“We are very excited to partner with Shire in this capacity as we strive to change the outcome for children with rare and complex diseases,” said Margaret Hostetter, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Cincinnati Children’s and Director, Cincinnati Children’s Research Foundation. “Cincinnati Children’s full spectrum of research capabilities—basic, clinical and translational—coupled with Shire’s drug development expertise makes for a very powerful partnership that we hope will have an impact on patients around the world.”
Under the terms of the agreement, Shire will make an initial upfront payment to Cincinnati Children’s and will have the opportunity to fund and offer scientific support to selected research programs. The emphasis will be on opportunities that have the potential to deliver a development candidate in less than three years from project initiation. Following the completion of each program, Shire will have an exclusive option to enter into a licensing agreement. Shire will be responsible for any further development and commercialization of development candidates arising from the collaboration. The agreement, negotiated by Shire and Cincinnati Children’s Center for Technology Commercialization, represents a flexible model of collaboration between industry and academia.
For further information please contact:
Investor Relations For Shire:
Sarah Elton-Farr,seltonfarr@shire.com
+44 1256 894157
Media For Shire:
Justine O’Malley,jomalley@npsp.com
+1 908 375 7665
For Cincinnati Children’s:
Mike Pistone,michael.pistone@cchmc.org
+1 814 403 7218
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center ranks third in the nation among all Honor Roll hospitals in U.S. News & World Report’s 2014 Best Children’s Hospitals. It is also ranked in the top 10 for all 10 pediatric specialties. Cincinnati Children’s, a non-profit organization, is one of the top three recipients of pediatric research grants from the National Institutes of Health, and a research and teaching affiliate of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. The medical center is internationally recognized for improving child health and transforming delivery of care through fully integrated, globally recognized research, education and innovation. Additional information can be found at www.cincinnatichildrens.org. Connect on the Cincinnati Children’s blog, via Facebook and on Twitter.
About Shire:
Shire enables people with life-altering conditions to lead better lives.
Our strategy is to focus on developing and marketing innovative specialty medicines to meet significant unmet patient needs.
We focus on providing treatments in Rare Diseases, Neuroscience, Gastrointestinal and Internal Medicine and we are developing treatments for symptomatic conditions treated by specialist physicians in other targeted therapeutic areas, such as Ophthalmics.
THE “SAFE HARBOR” STATEMENT UNDER THE PRIVATE SECURITIES LITIGATION REFORM ACT OF 1995
Statements included in this announcement that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties and are subject to change at any time. In the event such risks or uncertainties materialize, Shire’s results could be materially adversely affected. The risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, that: