Warning wipes £730m off Shire

INVESTORS stripped more than £730m from the value of Shire Pharmaceuticals after the group warned that competition and rising costs could hit its growth this year. The Footsie-listed stock dived 21% or 162p to 598p, a new year low.

Profits jumped 45% to $295.4m (£195m) for last year, before tax and one-offs. Sales of hyperactivity drug Adderall jumped 64%, securing more than one third of the US market. Overall sales climbed 31% to $887.6m.

But Shire said competitive and cost pressures could hit prospects in 2002. US rival Barr Laboratories earlier this month won US regulatory approval to sell a generic version of Adderall.

Chief Executive Rolf Stahel said growth would be hurt by the earlier-than-expected launch of a generic competitor to Adderall. But he said this was just a 'short-term blip' and that Shire would outperform its peers from 2003.

Shire is trying to move patients onto a once-daily version called Adderall XR, and said this product had already won 14% of the market since its launch last November. But the costs of promoting Adderall XR, coupled with the costs of launching Foznol, a treatment for high phosphate levels in patients on kidney dialysis, could dent growth.

Stahel said Shire had around $840m for product and project acquisitions. But he declined to comment on speculation that the firm might be interested in buying products from struggling Irish drugs group Elan.