Shire Plc (LSE: SHP; NASDAQ: SHPGY) is a Jersey-registered, Irish-headquartered global specialty biopharmaceutical company that is the manufacturer of pharmaceuticals. Originating in and with a large operational base in the United Kingdom, its brands and products include Adderall XR, Carbatrol, Fosrenol, and the recently released Vyvanse.

Shire has its primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It had a market capitalisation of approximately £12.3 billion as of 23 December 2011, making it the 31st-largest company on the London Stock Exchange. Shire has a secondary listing on NASDAQ.

Shire was founded by Harry Stratford, Dr James Murray, Dennis Stephens, Peter Moriarty, and Geoff Hall in 1986. It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1996. Shire's initial products were calcium supplements for patients seeking to treat or prevent osteoporosis. Shire's acquisitions include:

Shire seeks to develop and market pharmaceutical products for specialty physicians. The company's in-licensing, merger and acquisition efforts are focused on products in niche markets with strong intellectual property protection either in the US or Europe.

A shire is a traditional term for a division of land, found in the United Kingdom and in Australia. In parts of Australia, a shire is an administrative unit, but it is not synonymous with "county" there, which is a land registration unit. Individually, or as a suffix in Scotland and in the far northeast of England, the word is pronounced /ˈʃaɪər/. As a suffix in an English or Welsh place name, it is in most regions pronounced /-ʃə(r)/, or sometimes /-ʃɪə(r)/.

In the British Isles^{[citation needed]}, "shire" is the original term for what is usually known as a county; the word county having been introduced at the Norman Conquest of England. The two are synonymous. Although in modern British usage counties are referred to as "shires" mainly in poetic contexts, terms such as Shire Hall remain common. Shire also remains a common part of many county names, and Dorchester in Dorset is the original and oldest 'shire' in England.

The word derives from the Old English scir, itself a derivative of the Proto-Germanic skizo (cf. Old High German scira), meaning care or official charge. The system was first used in Wessex from the beginning of Anglo-Saxon settlement, and spread to most of the rest of England in the tenth century, along with West Saxon political control. In Domesday (1086) the city of York was divided into shires. The first shires of Scotland were created in English-settled areas such as Lothian and the Borders, (Bernicia) in the ninth century. King David I more consistently created shires and appointed sheriffs across lowland shores of Scotland.

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