Shire accepts €52.4bn takeover bid by Takeda

The takeover of Shire is the largest acquisition in Takeda’s history. Under the agreement, Takeda will pay  US$66, per share — US$30.33 in cash and 0.839 Takeda shares for each Shire share. Takeda will will partly finance the acquisition through a US$30.85bn (€25.56bn) debt from J.P. Morgan Chase, Sumitomo Mitsui, MUFG Bank. The transaction is expected to close in 1H19.

Takeda shareholders will own approximately 50% of the new company, which will be headquartered in Tokyo, where it will maintain its listing and additionally list its American depositary shares (ADS) on NYSE.  The companies expect to save about US$1.4bn in annual costs, mainly from geographical overlap of sales and marketing teams.

The deal will create one of the world’s largest drugmakers with combined revenues of €25,3bn. According to Christophe Weber, President and CEO at Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd the acquisition gives Takeda a strong foothold in the US market, where Shire generated 64% of ist 2017 revenues, while Takeda only spent 34% of its revenues there. The combined company would cash in 48% of its revenue in the currently largest market for biologics. „When you combine the two, in my mind, you have the perfect geographical footprint,” said Weber.

The deal complements Takeda’s core areas of gastroenterology, cancer and neuroscience with Shire’s orphan drug and neurology (ADHD) portfolio as well as several hemophilia products, which contributed a quarter to Shire’s annual sales and which have recently come under pressure by Roche’s bispecific antibody Hemlibra. A curative gene therapy of Shire is just in Phase I testing. In April, Shire had sold its oncology business to French Servier. "We are very much aware of the competitive pressure in hemophilia with the Roche compound. Being aware means we are also very conservative in our forecasts," said Weber. "When it comes to hemophilia, I think there is still a big debate about the level of erosion."