Shire and Cincinnati Children’s Establish Rare Disease Research Collaboration

Shire and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center have announced a 3-year, broad research collaboration for rare diseases. The goal of the collaboration is to discover and develop novel therapies to treat rare diseases with high unmet medical need combining Shire’s development and commercialization capabilities with Cincinnati Children’s research expertise. As a nationally ranked hospital, Cincinnati Children’s has expertise in many fields of research that align with Shire’s therapeutic areas of focus including, rare diseases, gastroenterology, nephrology and neurology. The partnership underscores Shire’s long-term commitment to bringing innovative therapies to patients living with rare diseases around the world.

“Shire is pleased to enter into this innovative collaboration with Cincinnati Children’s, which joins together leaders in industry and academia to advance pioneering research from the lab to the clinic,” said Dr Philip J. Vickers, Global Head of Research and Development, Shire. “Shire has a deep commitment to patients with rare diseases, and our developmental expertise, combined with Cincinnati Children’s research capabilities, should enable an acceleration of our discovery and development efforts."

“We are very excited to partner with Shire in this capacity as we strive to change the outcome for children with rare and complex diseases,” said Margaret Hostetter, Chief Medical Officer of Cincinnati Children’s and Director, Cincinnati Children’s Research Foundation. “Cincinnati Children’s full spectrum of research capabilities —basic, clinical and translational — coupled with Shire’s drug development expertise makes for a very powerful partnership that we hope will have an impact on patients around the world.”

Under the terms of the agreement, Shire will make an initial upfront payment to Cincinnati Children’s and will have the opportunity to fund and offer scientific support to selected research programs. The emphasis will be on opportunities that have the potential to deliver a development candidate in less than 3 years from project initiation. Following the completion of each program, Shire will have an exclusive option to enter into a licensing agreement. Shire will be responsible for any further development and commercialization of development candidates arising from the collaboration. The agreement, negotiated by Shire and Cincinnati Children’s Center for Technology Commercialization, represents a flexible model of collaboration between industry and academia.