DEAL TWO £10m payday for drugs chief as Japanese buy Shire

SHIRE’S boss stands to make more than £10m after the drug maker fi finally agreed to be taken over by a J Japanese rival for £45bn.

Flemming Ornskov, 60, will receive t the cash for 212,538 shares he holds in the company, which yesterday b backed a £49.01-per-share offer fr from Takeda. The Dane ( pictured) has a already taken home about £30m in p pay over the past five years.

Led by chairman Susan Kilsby, London-listed Shire had spurned several earlier proposals from T Takeda, leading the suitor to in increase its offer four times.

Over the course of talks, the fi final price rose by more than 11pc fr from the original £44 per share t that had been put forward.

Takeda president and chief executive t Christophe Weber said: ‘This has never been a hostile approach. It t has been a dialogue. And you r reach an agreement by improving your offer.’ He said the deal would allow the enlarged firm to become a leader in gastroenterology, neuroscience, oncology, rare diseases and plasma-derived therapies, which are life-saving treatments developed from human blood plasma.

He insisted it was too early to discuss specifics, such as how many jobs were likely to be cut.

However, about £1bn of cost savings are expected to focus on areas where the two companies have overlapping operations, and it was reported up to 7pc of their combined 52,000 workforce could go.

The deal represented a major success for Kilsby, who formerly headed Credit Suisse’s M&A operations in Europe. She said the tie-up ‘is in the best interests of our shareholders, our patients and the communities we serve’.

Shares yesterday rose 4.6pc, or 178.5p, to 4034.5p.