Shire Pharmaceuticals

As one of the world’s leading specialty biopharmaceutical companies, Shire has emerged as a company fully focused on a single purpose: to enable people with life-altering conditions to lead better lives.

As one of the world’s leading specialty biopharmaceutical companies, Shire has emerged as a company fully focused on a single purpose: to enable people with life-altering conditions to lead better lives.

Through our Shire Human Genetic Therapies (HGT) business, we pursue opportunities on behalf of patients and families facing such rare diseases as Fabry disease, Hunter syndrome, Gaucher disease, hereditary angioedema, and metachromatic leukodystrophy—patients whose very lives often hinge on the discovery and delivery of extraordinary medicines. Through our Specialty Pharma business, meanwhile, we develop and distribute an innovative portfolio of treatments for patients with ADHD, ulcerative colitis, and end-stage renal disease. Our commitment throughout is on symptomatic diseases, treated by specialist physicians. We take the risks we need to take so that we might change lives for the discernible better.

Strategic partnerships have fueled Shire’s rapid growth—acquisitions and mergers designed to fortify development as well as marketed portfolios. In the twenty plus years of Shire’s short history, the majority of our new products have joined our stable of existing medicines via an acquisition or partnership. The only exception being our HGT business, where development of enzyme replacement therapies from early phases is lower risk than the discovery of small molecules and we have an active in-house early research capability. Today nearly two dozen projects are in full development in Shire’s HGT and Specialty Pharma pipeline and 30 percent of our revenue is derived from products launched within the last two years.

At the same time, Shire has systematically extended its global reach by building operations in countries as far-flung as Australia and Argentina, Mexico and Japan, and Russia and Thailand. By offering a range of essential medicines to patients all over the world, Shire has gained a reputation as a company that delivers on the promises it makes.

It is our mission by 2015 to have 50% of our sales come from outside of the traditional US and European markets.

We also care, at Shire, about the communities in which we live and work—about who we are and the legacy we leave behind. Through countless Corporate Responsibility initiatives, we’re making a difference by supporting programs ranging from the education of young scientists and the beautifying of natural landscapes to the reduction of CO2 emissions and the development of a green-oriented employee family.

At Shire we are perpetually planning for the future. We’re exploring new markets. We’re conversing with thought leaders. We’re listening to patients and families, to innovators and inventors. We’re asking ourselves what more we can do to make this world a healthier place and in doing so, we’re mindful of our overall cultural ethos; to be as brave as the people we help.