Take­da clos­es in on a fi­nal $64B deal to buy Shire, starts to con­sid­er di­vesti­tures — re­ports

Take­da ap­pears to be just hours away from com­plet­ing a deal to buy Shire $SH­PG at 49 pounds per share, cre­at­ing a new top-10 phar­ma gi­ant to con­tend for the world’s drug mar­ket. Nikkei Asian Re­view says the for­mal bid now ex­pect­ed will amount to 46 bil­lion pounds in cash and stock — about $64 bil­lion — in line with the lat­est pre­lim­i­nary num­bers of­fered by Take­da.

As Bloomberg re­ports, the pre­lim­i­nary deal isn’t fi­nal­ized and may yet be de­layed or de­railed. But Take­da CEO Christophe We­ber has been re­lent­less in his pur­suit of Shire, un­de­terred about ques­tions re­gard­ing Shire’s pipeline and its port­fo­lio, which has come un­der heavy pres­sure from ri­vals.

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