Shire to acquire regenerative medicine firm Advanced BioHealing for $750 mn

British specialty biopharmaceutical firm, Shire Plc yesterday said that it had agreed to acquire US-based Advanced BioHealing, a maker of a bio-engineered skin substitute, for $750 million in cash.

Privately held, Westport, Connecticut-based Advanced BioHealing is a regenerative medicine company that develops, manufactures and commercialises living cell-based therapies for regenerative medicine.

Advanced BioHealing, which focuses its small sales team on specialist physicians, makes Dermagraft - a bio-engineered skin substitute that is used to treat slow-healing diabetic foot ulcers (DFU).

Advanced BioHealing has operations on two sites in the US, a manufacturing facility in La Jolla, California, and research laboratories in Brentwood, Tennessee.

Advanced Tissue Sciences had initially developed Dermagraft but had filed for bankruptcy in 2002. Venture capital firm Canaan Partners and other investors obtained rights to the product and started Advanced BioHealing, which has since become a profitable company with 2010 revenues of $146.7 million, up from $8.6 million in 2007.

With the acquisition, Shire will own the global rights for Dermagraft and said that it will continue to invest in the development of new indications and new geographies, pending regulatory approvals.