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Shire Announces UCD Scholarship for Masters in Biopharmaceutical Engineering

Thursday, 11 October, 2018

Dublin, Ireland, 3 October 2018 Shire plc (LSE: SHP, NASDAQ: SHPG), the global biotechnology leader in rare diseases, is delighted to announce its support of an academic scholarship programme for student’s undertaking the Masters in Biopharmaceutical Engineering in University College Dublin (UCD).

The scholarship, which will run from 2018 through to 2020, will be awarded to the top performing students each year. Separately, there will also be a prize funded by Shire for the best Bioprocess Engineering Design Project, submitted in semester 3 by a team of students.

Susan Hynes, Site Lead for Shire Dunboyne, said: “We are delighted to announce this collaboration with UCD’s Masters in Biopharmaceutical Engineering. Shire is committed to support the drive to expand skills and talent. This is essential in order to meet the demand for high calibre graduates in Ireland’s growing Biopharma sector and this university programme is a great way of doing this. This is key for us as we continue to build our presence in Ireland with our state-of-the-art biologics facility in Dunboyne.”

The Biopharmaceutical MEngSC Engineering programme provides intensive training in the requisite skills for a professional engineer or scientist in the biopharmaceutical sector. The course content addresses the principal scientific and engineering challenges involved in the design, operation and management of biopharmaceutical production facilities, important skills for Shire as the company looks to the opening of its new facility in Dunboyne, County Meath.

The programme, like Shire, is also closely linked with the National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training (NIBRT), a global centre of excellence for training and research in bioprocessing. This partnership will further enhance Shire and UCD researchers and students to accelerate the innovative synergies between biopharma and academic institutes in Ireland.

The scholarship will be awarded upon graduation in December, for both the individuals and design project teams.

Susan McDonnell, Associate Professor BSc, PhD, Programme Director, UCD, commented: “The biopharma manufacturing sector continues to thrive in Ireland and we are very pleased to announce today’s scholarship. Shire’s major expansion in Dunboyne is a confidence statement in its commitment to Ireland and in their ability to source the best talent for their operations.”

About Shire, Dunboyne

Shire is developing a new, innovative biologics manufacturing facility, on a 120 acre site in Dunboyne, County Meath. The state-of-the-art facility will adopt single use technology in the manufacturing processes, will be a highly automated facility and will also be the European Quality Control Hub for Shire’s biologics portfolio.

Approximately 400 people will be employed at the site, with recruitment underway across multiple functional areas including manufacturing, quality assurance, quality control, engineering, finance, supply chain, automation, human resources and environmental health and safety.

About Shire

Shire is the global biotechnology leader serving patients with rare diseases and specialised conditions. We seek to push boundaries through discovering and delivering new possibilities for patient communities who often have few or no other champions. Relentlessly on the edge of what’s next, we are serial innovators with a diverse pipeline offering fresh thinking and new hope. Serving patients and partnering with healthcare communities in over 100 countries, we strive to be part of the entire patient journey to enable earlier diagnosis, raise standards of care, accelerate access to treatment, and support patients. Our diverse portfolio of therapeutic areas includes Immunology, Haematology, Genetic Diseases, Neuroscience, Internal Medicine, and Ophthalmics.

Championing patients is our call to action - it brings the opportunity - and responsibility - to change people’s lives.

(opens in a new window)www.shire.ie

About MEngSc Biopharmaceutical Engineering Programme

This Masters programme provides substantial coverage of scientific, technical, management and regulatory issues associated with this industry and offers an internationally recognised high quality flexible curriculum, which follows the latest developments in science and technology. This programme is suitable for Science and Engineering graduates wishing to obtain a qualification which is highly relevant to the biopharmaceutical industry.

UCD College of Engineering and Architecture

Room 122 & Room 126, UCD Engineering and Materials Science Centre, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
T: +353 1 716 1868 | E: eng.arch@ucd.ie