Shire Pharmaceuticals Group was founded in 1986. In 1997 Shire acquired the advanced drug delivery company, Pharmavene and the specialty sales and marketing company, Richwood Pharmaceutical Company. This was followed in October 1999 by the acquisition of the German, French and Italian sales and marketing subsidiaries of Fuisz Technologies. In December 1999, Shire merged with Roberts Pharmaceutical. In April 2000 Shire extended its operations to the Pacific Rim countries following the registration of a Representative Office of Shire Pharmaceuticals in Singapore. It has also extended its operations to Spain following the incorporation of an operating subsidiary with effect from June 2000. More recently, on 11 May 2001, Shire merged with Canadian Pharmaceutical company BioChem Pharma. As a company, Shire has a strategic focus on meeting the needs of the specialist physician and currently focuses on developing projects and marketing products in the areas of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), gastrointestinal (GI), renal diseases and human genetic therapies. This enables them to gain considerable expertise in these areas and build long term relationships with specialist prescribers.