Shire Announces Award Recipients For 2014 Michael Yasick ADHD Scholarship
Shire plc (LSE: SHP, NASDAQ: SHPG) announces the recipients of its 2014 Michael Yasick ADHD Scholarship. The program is for individuals in the United States diagnosed with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) who are pursuing higher education at a college, vocational school, or technical school. Fifty-seven award recipients have been selected from 2,380 applicants across the United States. As a part of the scholarship application process, applicants completed an essay explaining how ADHD has impacted their lives and submitted letters of recommendation. Additional award selection criteria included involvement in community service, and volunteer and extracurricular activities.
This year, Shire changed the name of its annual ADHD scholarship in memory of the late Michael Yasick, a senior executive at Shire whose vision made the Shire ADHD Scholarship Program possible. Mike was inspired by the thousands of high school seniors, college students, and adults going on to higher education who suffer from ADHD. He envisioned the scholarship as a way to recognize the brave individuals who work hard to overcome the challenges of this condition and help them continue their educational pursuits. Mike put patients at the center of his leadership philosophy, an approach that earned him numerous awards and distinguished his 22-year career in pharmaceuticals, including 9 years at Shire.
“The Michael Yasick ADHD Scholarship is part of Shire’s patient-centric approach that provides support to patients with ADHD and their caregivers,” said Perry Sternberg, head of Shire’s Neuroscience Business Unit. “We have doubled the number of scholarships since inception, and it is an honor for the Shire team to help these individuals achieve their academic goals with tuition assistance and ADHD coaching services.”
The Shire ADHD Scholarship includes a $2,000 monetary award and a prepaid year of ADHD coaching services from the Edge Foundation, which includes weekly sessions with trained ADHD coaches. The students set weekly goals and action plans to meet those goals and have e-mail and phone support from their coaches to help keep them on track in their pursuit of higher education. The Edge Foundation is a Seattle-based nonprofit organization that offers support for students with ADHD. The Edge Foundation’s primary mission is to provide access to qualified, professional coaches for students with ADHD as part of their multimodal treatment program.
This is the fourth year that Carol Caruso, Executive Director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Pennsylvania Montgomery County, has served as a judge for the scholarship program. “I am constantly impressed with the caliber of the content in the applications that we review,” Caruso said. “We are very fortunate to have so many bright and talented individuals apply for this scholarship. We applaud Shire’s ongoing commitment to providing much needed support for students with ADHD.”
The 2014 award recipients are: Broderick Allan of Michigan, Eve Atkins of Pennsylvania, Randall Back of Nebraska, Kathyrn Bandru of Pennsylvania, Morgan Beck of Pennsylvania, Eric Bell of Missouri, Hannah Birch of Iowa, Jake Bova of Montana, Megan Bowen of Florida, Julia Brodie of Washington, Justin Corr of Maryland, John Cotti of California, Zachary Cross of South Carolina, Patrick Gaddis of Georgia, Courtney Hale of Virginia, Nile Iverson of Iowa, Alexa Jakusovszky of Oregon, Colbee Jones of Nevada, Daniela Kapusta of Illinois, Robert Keene of Georgia, Michael Kent of Colorado, Elizabeth Lelonek of Maryland, Emily Lord of Texas, Cristina Maddock of Florida, James Maibuecher of Illinois, Bridgid Maloney of Nebraska, Austin Norwood of Illinois, Mason Nye of Pennsylvania, Austin Otto of Minnesota, Melanie Palacios of Florida, Brandon Paul of North Carolina, Tyler Rakar of Ohio, Bayley Ray-Smith of Maine, Isabel Reid of North Carolina, Anna Silva of Kentucky, McKenzie Smith of North Carolina, Noah Tatko of Missouri, Lindsey Thomas of California, Zachary Ticktin of California, Patrick Todd of New Jersey, Ryan Visanska-Hartwick of New Jersey, Eliana von Krusenstiern of Massachusetts, Caroline White of Alabama, and Jamie Zinkgraf of Washington.*
Please visit www.ShireADHDscholarship.com to learn more about the program.
For further information please contact:
Investor Relations
Jeff Poulton
jpoulton@shire.com
+1 781 482 0945
Sarah Elton-Farr
seltonfarr@shire.com
+44 1256 894157
Media
Audrey Abernathy
aabernathy@shire.com
+1 484 595 2389
Gwen Fisher
gfisher@shire.com
+1 484 595 9836
Shire enables people with life-altering conditions to lead better lives.
Our strategy is to focus on developing and marketing innovative specialty medicines to meet significant unmet patient needs.
We focus on providing treatments in Neuroscience, Rare Diseases, and Gastrointestinal and Internal Medicine and we are developing treatments for symptomatic conditions treated by specialist physicians in other targeted therapeutic areas, such as Ophthalmology.
www.shire.com
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