Shire sees new drugs stimulating ADHD market

By Mark Potter

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Shire Plc (SHP.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) has a suite of new hyperactivity drugs ready to take over from its top-selling Adderall XR, which could stimulate fresh demand in a market where growth has been slowing, its chief executive said.

Matthew Emmens told the Reuters Biotechnology Summit on Thursday that a new treatment codenamed NRP104 could be even bigger than Adderall XR, with the potential to be a so-called "blockbuster" medicine making over $1 billion of sales a year.

Shire, Britain's third-biggest drugmaker, has led the sometimes controversial field of treatments for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with its Adderall, and then improved, once-daily Adderall XR medicines.

On Thursday, the group said Adderall XR captured a record 26 percent of the U.S. ADHD market in 2005, with sales of $730.8 million. But the medicine faces potential cheap, copycat competition from generic drugmakers.

Shire is fighting to protect Adderall XR. But it now does not expect a generic launch this year, which should give it time to establish some of its new products.

Chief among these is NRP104, which is partnered with U.S. drugmaker New River Pharmaceuticals NRPH.O.

"Potentially, you have a market leader drug," Emmens said.

Key to the medicine's prospects is the fact that it does become active in the stomach, which makes it less open to abuse or overdose than many other ADHD drugs even though it is, like them, a stimulant, Emmens said.  Continued...