Shire agrees to £46bn deal
DRUGS giant Shire has agreed to be bought for £46billion by Takeda Pharmaceutical in the biggest foreign acquisition by a Japanese company.
London-listed Shire, which makes treatments for attention deficit and rare diseases, finally consented to the cash and shares offer after five approaches by Takeda, which first declared its interest six weeks ago.
Subject to shareholder approval, the acquisition is expected to become effective in the first half of next year, with up to three Shire directors joining the Takeda board.
Takeda, which will be catapulted into the top 10 of global pharmaceutical companies, has been looking to expand overseas after facing growing patent and pricing pressures in its domestic market.
Buying Shire, which derives the bulk of its revenue from North America, will increase its exposure to the US, the world’s biggest pharma market.
Concerns have been raised over Takeda’s increasing debt to finance a deal, although it is targeting annual cost savings of at least £1billion from reducing overlapping marketing and removing duplicated research and development.
An estimated 6-7 per cent of the combined 52,000 jobs could go. The Japanese group said joining forces with Shire would bring together their complementary positions in gastroenterology and neuroscience, as well as providing leading positions in rare diseases and plasmaderived therapies for conditions such as haemophilia.
Shire chief executive Dr Flemming Ornskov, pictured, said: “With a truly innovative portfolio and pipeline, I believe that the combination of the two companies is in the best interests of shareholders and offers an opportunity to improve the lives of even more patients globally with rare and highly specialised conditions.”
Shire, which traces its roots back to 1986, started out selling calcium supplements to treat or prevent osteoporosis, but soon had programmes under way for patients facing conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease.
It has faced growing competition from generic drugs and had previously been a takeover target for US drugmaker AbbVie. But that deal collapsed in 2014 following a crackdown by American authorities on overseas merger deals prompted by tax advantages. Shire shares rose 178½p to 4034½p.