Shire Expanding Chesco Footprint
By Joseph Galante, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Jul. 19–Shire Pharmaceuticals Group P.L.C. is expanding its U.S. headquarters in Tredyffrin to support its growing pipeline of specialty drugs for rare diseases and its growing sales in its core ADHD business.
The British pharmaceutical company, best known for its drug Adderall for treating attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, will announce plans today to add 390 employees over the next four years in 115,000 square feet of newly leased office space.
The additional workers will increase Shire’s staff in Chester County by 65 percent. Currently, 600 administrative and research-and-development staff work in the company’s three buildings in Tredyffrin. The new workers will boost the company’s total U.S. workforce of 2,200 by 18 percent.
"We have the most booming pipeline in the business," said Shire chief executive officer Matthew Emmens, who lives in Malvern. "And to do that, you have to have a lot of people."
The U.K.’s third-largest drug-maker, behind GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C. and AstraZeneca P.L.C., will spend $35 million to improve the new site at 1200 Morris Dr. in the Chesterbrook Corporate Center, the company said. Shire also is receiving $2.07 million from the state in the form of tax credits and two grants.
Shire’s presence in the U.S. market, where it does 80 percent of its business, has grown due to seven acquisitions over the last 10 years and to modifications of existing drugs.
The company, based outside London, has carved a niche for itself by selling specialty drugs that fight rare illnesses such as human genetic, renal or gastrointestinal diseases.
Shire has 3,200 employees worldwide, and had sales last year of $1.8 billion. That makes it a small player compared with other pharmaceutical companies that have a major presence in the Philadelphia area.
Merck & Co. Inc., for instance, has 20,000 workers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York alone, and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals has 7,000 employees in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. GlaxoSmithKline had revenue last year of $43 billion, and Johnson & Johnson posted revenue of $53 billion.
But Shire has averaged 14 percent annual revenue growth over the last four years. Analysts are predicting that the double-digit growth will continue as the larger pharmaceutical companies mature with slower growth rates.
"Shire has one of the most exciting pipelines," in part from the addition of Vyvanse, a next-generation ADHD drug Shire launched two weeks ago, Morgan Stanley analyst Daniel Mahony said last week in a research note.
Moreover, Shire’s two top drugs for ulcerative colitis, Lialda and Pentasa, could help drive annual revenue up 27 percent this year to $2.29 billion, David Buck, an analyst with the Buckingham Research Group of New York, said in a research note also filed last week.
Although often criticized for relying too much on Adderall, which the company says accounts for 48 percent of its annual revenue, Shire is expecting more of its growth to come from its non-ADHD portfolio, including drugs in the regenerative medicine field for repairing or replacing cells, tissues and organs.
"We didn’t want to be a one-product wonder and fizzle out," Emmens, the CEO, said in an interview.
This year, the company is working on an enzyme-replacement therapy for Hunter syndrome, an inherited enzyme deficiency, and development of another drug to reduce and prevent scarring, among other things.
The new facility in Tredyffrin will accommodate legal, financial, marketing, and research-and-development teams to support those projects.
In 2004, Shire received $3.45 million in grants and tax credits from the state when it established its U.S. headquarters here.
Shire’s shares fell $1.18 to $73.80 in Nasdaq trading yesterday. The stock hit a record of $76.15 July 12.
Contact staff writer Joseph Galante at 215-854-5194 or jgalante@phillynews.com.
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