Shire (NSDQ:SHPGY) has high hopes for its regenerative medicine units, aiming to forge a $1 billion business within the decade.
The San Diego, Calif.-based company is putting "well over $100 million" into a new 150,000-square-foot campus to house the headquarters, manufacturing and laboratory space of recent $750 million acquisition Advanced BioHealing.
"We believe we’re on the front lines in a new era," Shire regenerative medicine president Kevin Rakin told Xconomy. "We’re one of the few commercially oriented companies. A lot of other companies are doing [research] and early stage [development], and we want to be the partner of choice that figures out how to scale up manufacturing, and how to commercialize."
Rakin headed Advanced BioHealing prior to the acquisition and now heads Shire’s regenerative health business, which he hopes will hit 10 figures in 5-7 years.
"Shire made a substantial investment in acquiring us, and now they’re making another substantial investment in building us out," he told the website. "We want to be a billion-dollar part of Shire. That absolutely is the goal, to build the leading player, or one of the leading players, in regenerative medicine."
Advanced BioHealing acquired Dermagraft, a diabetic foot ulcer treatment, from Smith & Nephew (NYSE:SNN) when the British health products giant abandoned it in 2005 after the FDA rejected it as a leg ulcer therapy.
Shire is under investigation for its marketing of the Dermagraft products, the company revealed in April. Shire noted that it sold $48.8 million worth of the Dermagraft skin substitute during the 1st quarter. Since Q3 2011, Shire’s reeled in about $143.4 million from the regenerative medicine product ($50 million in Q3 2011, $55 million in Q4 and the $48.8 million logged in Q1 2012).
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