Movetis was a

pharmaceutical company The pharmaceutical industry discovers, develops, produces, and markets drugs or pharmaceutical drugs for use as medications to be administered to patients (or self-administered), with the aim to cure them, vaccinate them, or alleviate sympto ...

headquartered in

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

. It was founded in 2006 as a spin-off from parent company Johnson & Johnson. The company specialized in pharmaceuticals for treating gastro-intestinal disorders. The primary drug produced by Movetis was

Prucalopride Prucalopride, brand names Resolor and Motegrity among others, is a drug acting as a selective, high affinity 5-HT4 receptor agonist which targets the impaired motility associated with chronic constipation, thus normalizing bowel movements. Pruca ...

(known by the brand name "Resolor"), indicated for cases of chronic constipation.

History

Movetis was founded by Dirk Reyn,

Staf Van Reet Staf Van Reet is a Belgium, Belgian scientist and businessman. Currently he is Managing Director of the biotech company Viziphar Biosciences BVBA, and member of the Board of Directors of Janssen Pharmaceutica and the Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechn ...

Jan schuurkes and Remi VandenBroek, and was backed by venture firms Sofinnova Partners, Sofinnova Ventures and Life Sciences Partners. In December 2009, it became a public company with an

IPO An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

on the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed ...

Euronext Euronext N.V. (short for European New Exchange Technology) is a pan-European bourse that offers various trading and post-trade services. Traded assets include regulated equities, exchange-traded funds (ETF), warrants and certificates, bonds, ...

. Shortly thereafter, it gained regulatory approval to distribute Resolor in 30 European countries. In 2010, the company was acquired by British drugmaker Shire Plc for 428 million euros ($559 million).Shire to buy Belgian drugmaker Movetis for $560mln
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References

{{reflist Johnson & Johnson subsidiaries Pharmaceutical companies of Belgium Pharmaceutical companies established in 2006 2010 mergers and acquisitions