Shire acquired by Takeda

Takeda has now acquired Shire, for £46 billion, but it was not all plain sailing. Shire turned down the merger proposals four times before Takeda could announce the deal in May 2018. Now Takeda is one of the world’s ten biggest pharmaceutical companies, and will be focused on therapeutic areas of oncology, gastroenterology, neuroscience, rare diseases and plasma-derived therapies.
Takeda’s president and CEO, Christophe Weber, said: “We are delighted that the acquisition was approved by an overwhelming majority of our shareholders at Takeda’s extraordinary general meeting on December 5th, 2018. We are also pleased to have completed the acquisition several months earlier than expected, which was enabled through the hard work of our respective organisations and the smooth receipt of regulatory clearances. We appreciate the support of our employees, partners and shareholders throughout the process. This marks a significant moment in Takeda’s history and is an exciting step forward as we accelerate our transformation journey to deliver highly-innovative medicines to patients around the world with expanded scale and geographical footprint.”