Barron’s Magazine, is a financial weekly published by Dow Jones that keeps a very close eye on the world’s financial news and the corporations that are making news. Recently they ran a short series of articles on Shire Pharmaceuticals and the potential problems ahead for the company.

The reason that these articles are of interest to parents of children with ADHD, is that Shire makes Adderall, Adderall XR, and Vyvanse, all major medications used for ADHD treatment. The problems for Shire may be blessings for parents, so here are some of the details:

Shire has the patent on Adderall XR, which has been a controversial medication in the treatment of ADHD for several years now. And Shire’s patent on the drug expires in April of 2009. This means that other companies can begin selling “generic” versions of Adderall XR (which will initially be manufactured by Shire) next spring, potentially at prices far lower than Shire’s prices for Adderall XR.

Barron’s claims that Shire’s Adderall XR is the most prescribed drug for ADHD in the world with about 23% of the market, and that of Shire’s $2.4 billion in revenue last year, over 40% came from Adderall sales (about $1 billion). As investors look into the near future, and respond to what they see, Shire Pharmaceutical’s stock has fallen over 40% since September of 2007.

Vyvanse is Shire’s newest ADHD medication, a true pro-drug, where the medication’s precursors are linked to amino acids to make the medications less likely to be abused. At present Barron’s reports that Vyvanse has captured about 7.5% of the ADHD drug market, and that it is not gaining in popularity as quickly as some had hoped.

The Good News: Adderall is very popular, and by next year there may be less expensive forms of the medication available to families. This would be a generic form, but at least in the short-term would actually be manufactured by Shire itself but sold by two different companies.

The Bad News: Shire is actually good for us and we don’t want to see it suffer too badly. Shire Pharmaceuticals is one of the few companies in the entire world that is interested in developing, testing, and improving medications for ADHD children, teens, and adults. Most other pharmaceutical companies just want to tinker with what we already have, what we already know. Shire is willing to try new things, like using pro-drugs, in the treatment of ADHD. If there is ever going to be a really big breakthrough treatment brought to us from the pharmaceutical industry (as opposed to from the nutraceutical medicine industry) for the treatment of ADHD, it will certainly come from an innovative company like Shire.

So let’s keep our eyes open and see what happens next with Adderall XR. Stay in touch with your physician on this.