Shire and Boston Children’s Hospital announce rare diseases research collaboration

Hannah Blake

pharmaphorum

Shire has announced a three-year research collaboration on rare diseases with Boston Children’s Hospital. Research expertise from Boston Children’s hospital, will be combined with Shire’s development and commercialization capabilities, with the aim to complete the collaboration’s goal of developing novel therapies to treat a number of rare pediatric diseases with high unmet medical need.

“As a leader in rare diseases, Shire is pleased to enter into this innovative collaboration with Boston Children’s, which joins together leaders in academia and industry to advance pioneering research from the lab to the clinic. Shire has a deep commitment to patients with rare diseases, and our developmental expertise combined with Boston Children’s research capabilities should enable an acceleration of our discovery and development efforts. Our collaboration with Boston Children’s is an ideal example of how we advance these goals."

Dr. Philip J. Vickers, Global Head of Research and Development, Shire HGT.

Under terms of the agreement, Shire will make an initial upfront payment to Boston Children’s Hospital and will have the opportunity to fund 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 these programs, Shire will have an exclusive option to enter into a licensing agreement for each program. Boston Children’s Hospital will then be eligible to receive certain development and commercial milestone payments, as well as royalties on product sales from Shire.

“We are excited about the potential that the collaboration with Shire represents. Boston Children’s brings the research infrastructure to make the foundational discoveries about these diseases and our clinicians know the patients and their needs. Partnering with Shire’s drug development capabilities represents a powerful combination that we hope will facilitate the development of new classes of therapy to ultimately benefit patients.”

Dr. Alan Beggs, Director of the Manton Center for Orphan Disease Research at Boston Children’s.

The agreement represents a flexible structure that aligns the parties according to their strengths.

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