Friday, February 20, 2009

Shire HGT to benefit from new office in Japan

By Mass High Tech staff

Biopharmaceutical company Shire PLC is helping to bring the drugs coming out of its Lexington division Shire Human Genetic Therapies into the Japanese market with the opening of a new office in Tokyo.

U.K.-based Shire PLC (Nasdaq: SHPGY) has named Soh Fujiwara as managing director for the new Japanese operations, and he will be responsible for overseeing the implementation and development of clinical and regulatory strategies for bringing products in the Human Genetic Therapies pipeline into that market.

Sylvie Gregoire, president of Shire HGT and Mass High Tech Women to Watch honoree in 2008, said that Japan has “unique regulatory, clinical and cultural characteristics” that make having an office there vital to Shire’s global expansion strategy.

Late last month, Shire HGT and Worcester Polytechnic Institute joined in implementing a life sciences training center for adults. The training center is part of WPI’s Life Sciences and Bioengineering Center at Gateway Park, with commercial equipment donated by Shire HGT.

Shire HGT, which employs about 675 workers locally and 750 globally, moved from Cambridge to Lexington in the fall. The company is focused on marketing and developing biological treatments for serious diseases. Shire HGT was formerly Transkaryotic Therapies Inc. before Shire bought the business in 2005.