The Big Bucks in Keeping Kids Focused

Not that long ago, if Junior didn’t pay attention in his classroom, he might be sent to the principal’s office or have his parents called in to discuss his “bad” behavior. Today such kids increasingly are being screened for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, a condition for which diagnoses are soaring across the U.S. Characterized by inattention, overactivity, and impulsiveness, ADHD may afflict an estimated 10 percent of American kids, according to a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and some researchers link it to drug abuse and an increased likelihood of criminal convictions in adulthood.

That’s been great news for Shire, the world’s biggest seller of ADHD drugs. More than 90 percent of the Dublin-based company’s sales of ADHD medicines are in the U.S., where brisk demand since 2007 helped fuel a more than doubling in U.S. annual revenue for the class of stimulants used to treat the condition. The drugmaker would like to duplicate that success closer to home. But as Shire tries to roll out its flagship ADHD pill, Vyvanse, in eight European countries, it faces an unfamiliar hurdle: convincing people the condition exists. ADHD is diagnosed about 25 times more often in the U.S. than in the U.K. And while attitudes vary by country, many European parents, teachers, and doctors are reluctant to use medication to treat what they see as routine childhood behavioral problems.