In November 2013, Viropharma was acquired by Shire PLC. News reports at the time suggested that that purchase was primarily due to SHire's decision to acquire the orphan drug Cinryze, a drug developed by Viropharma for the inflammatory condition hereditary angioedema, and which complemented Shireâs Firazyr for the same malady. Involved in SBIR from soon after its founding in 1994, ViroPharma is a development stage pharmaceutical company committed to the commercialization, development and discovery of new antiviral medicines. Its current drug development and discovery activities are focused on a number of ribonucleic acid (RNA) virus diseases, including viral meningitis, viral respiratory infection, the common cold, respiratory syncytial virus pneumonia and hepatitis C. ViroPharma's most advanced product candidate, pleconaril, is being developed for the treatment of common RNA virus diseases. ViroPharma has completed a Phase II challenge study in viral respiratory infection (VRI) with pleconaril, in which all evaluated disease measures were significantly reduced in treated subjects, along with another Phase II clinical trial for viral meningitis which demonstrated that pleconaril significantly reduced disease duration
