Shire recently announced its purchase of privately owned US biotech firm SARcode Bioscience. The acquisition was worth US$160 million and central to the deal is the rights over a new drug in the late stages of development that helps cure dry eye disease.
This is the second purchase by Shire of an opthalmological company, which is currently a hot area for research. Two weeks ago, it had purchase Premacure of Sweden.
Shire is Great Britain's third largest pharmaceutical company and has long been known to purchase smaller biotechnology firms in order to build its drug portfolio. Under its new CEO Flemming Ornskov, this program would continue as it has been a proven formula for success for the company. Ornskov assumes the position from Angus Russell on April 30.
According to Ornskov, "With us having now made two acquisitions, I think we are sending a strong signal to the external world and to the internal world that we certainly will be looking at further opportunities in ophthalmology, if it is in areas of ophthalmology that we perceive to have high growth opportunities, significant unmet need and where innovation is the key driver for differentiation."
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