Shire to buy up German biotech
pharmafile | July 3, 2008 | News story | Sales and Marketing |Â Â MA, biotechÂ
Shire is set to acquire German biotech firm Jerini, in a bid to expand its portfolio of treatments for rare disorders.
The deal will give Shire global marketing rights to Jerini's lead product Firazyr, a first-in-class orphan treatment for hereditary angioedema (HAE).
The product has already passed the initial approval stages in Europe and Shire anticipates full approval and launch later this year.
The company says its expertise and infrastructure will boost opportunities for the product, which is expected to reach peak global sales over the next decade of up to $400 million.
Chief executive Angus Russell said: "The proposed acquisition of Jerini would bring to Shire a new drug that is highly complementary to our human genetic therapy portfolio, which we have been developing since 2005 as part of our clear, overall focus on specialist drugs."
Firazyr has orphan drug status in both Europe and the US. The drug is administered via a pre-filled syringe and works to reduce the painful and sometimes fatal swelling of soft tissue that characterises HAE and can occur in the hands, feet, face, larynx and abdomen.
Shire anticipates a European launch for Firazyr in the second half of 2008 and will continue to pursue its US approval. This received a set back earlier this year in April, when Jerini received a 'not approvable' letter from the FDA.
Shire said it was confident Firazyr could still win US approval and that the regulator's issues with the drug were connected with efficacy data rather than drug safety.
Shire's offer for Jerini values the smaller firm at 328 million Euros and the deal will be finalised over the next few months.
Once complete Shire will conduct a strategic review of Jerini's other assets. These include Jerini Ophthalmic, its US subsidiary developing a treatment for wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and JPT Peptide Technologies, a peptide manufacturing operation that produces complex synthetic peptides.
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