Shire Plc, the British specialty pharmaceutical company, has made an agreed bid to acquire all of the Frankfurt-listed shares of Jerini Ag for €328 million. In a conference call on 3 July 2008, Shire’s chief executive, Angus Russell, said the acquisition will add Jerini’s hereditary angioedema (HAE) product, Firazyr (icatibant acetate), to its portfolio of drugs for symptomatic rare disorders administered by specialist physicians. Firazyr was given a positive opinion by the European Medicine Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use in April 2008 and is awaiting final approval by the European Commission.
