BLOG: Whither the Shire eye care business?*

ByDarrell E. White, MD

Did you see the news about Shire? The Japanese pharma giant Takeda made an offer to buy Shire and the Shire board accepted it a few weeks ago. It is highly unlikely that the U.S. Department of Justice will disallow this union, so Takeda is poised to take over all of Shire’s business units, and that includes eye care.

What does this mean for those of us in the DED treating community now that we have inculcated Xiidra into our treatment protocols? That depends on a couple of things starting out with who actually ends up owning that particular part of the Shire portfolio. Let’s say for the sake of simplicity that Takeda chooses to keep the eye care business. At this time Takeda doesn’t have any products in our space. For at least the immediate future we would likely expect that the business unit, including our local sales reps, would remain as is.

However, if you spend a little bit of time perusing the financial news outlets you have to wonder whether Takeda is actually going to hang on to eye care. Xiidra is still growing, and Shire has a nice little pipeline of promising ophthalmic molecules in various stages of FDA trials. The days of synergy for synergy’s sake in an acquisition are dead and gone. It’s all about making the numbers look good for the sellers and the buyers. Wall Street wags have it even money that Takeda spins eye care out to someone else.

Won’t that be fun? What say we set up a pool on who gets in the game and why? I’ll start. The most obvious player is Novartis. Novartis has the old Alcon book of medicines as well as its pipeline, and the obvious hole is DED. With the surgical spin-off there’s some money to spend, too. J&J has recently entered the DED world in both diagnostics and treatment with its acquisition of Tear Science. You may have heard about their eye care product, Acuvue contact lenses. DED is the scourge of the contact lens wearing public. It’s a natural fit. Also with cash on hand, J&J has to be considered a candidate to pick up Shire’s eye care division.

What about B + L? I’ve spent too much time bashing B + L over the years and I’m starting to feel a bit guilty about that. Let’s just say that B + L is such a longshot that the blokes at Ladbrokes won’t even float a line on them buying Shire’s eye care unit.

The most delicious possibility in this sweepstakes is none other than...wait for it...Allergan! Think about it. Allergan’s dry eye juggernaut Restasis is under direct attack from oncoming generics and a likely branded competitor from Sun. Nobody knows more about developing DED products, and no one has deeper or longer relationships with the doctors who treat dry eye than Allergan. Why not scoop up Xiidra and the rest of the pipeline and return to Mount Olympus? There is a strong executive team already in place driving a well-oiled sales force with tons of experience.

I mean, if nothing else, do it for the entertainment value, you know? (Pops corn; pulls up a chair...)

*All information above, and comments made thereof, derive from information openly available in the public domain.

Disclosure: White reports he is a consultant to Allergan, Shire, Sun, Kala, Ocular Science, Rendia, TearLab, Eyevance and Omeros; is a speaker for Shire, Allergan, Omeros and Sun; and has an ownership interest in Ocular Science and Eyevance.