But on December 5th, eight months after Takeda, Japan's largest pharmaceutical firm, 但12月5日，距日本最大医药公司武田制药

said it was interested in buying Shire, an Irish-headquartered drugmaker of a similar size, shareholders at last voted to approve the acquisition. 称有意收购夏尔（一家总部位于爱尔兰的类似规模制药商）八个月后，股东们最终投票同意收购。

The purchase will cost Takeda $56bn in cash and new shares. Since the initial news of the deal the firm's share price has fallen by 25%. 武田制药将以现金和新股票的方式以560亿美元价格收购该公司。自关于该笔交易的最初新闻曝光以来，该公司股价下跌25%。

Takeda's acquisition is unusual. It is by far the largest foreign buy-out ever executed by a Japanese firm 武田制药的收购不同寻常。这是迄今为止日本公司实施的最大一笔国外收购

(even though the country's outbound merger-and-acquisition activity is surging). （虽然，该国的外向收购兼并活动在增长）。

Nor was Shire considered a likely target. Acquiring firms usually seek new technologies or overlaps that allow cost-cutting. 夏尔也并非被认为是最有可能的目标。收购通常是瞄准了新的技术或是能够消减成本的重合。

Shire does have a strong pipeline of new molecules, but the portfolio did not complement any large drugmakers' existing suite of drugs, including that of Takeda. 夏尔确实有强大的新分子市场渠道，但投资组合并不能补充任何大型制药商现存的药物组成，包括武田制药在内。

Powerful domestic pressures are encouraging Japanese drugmakers to look abroad. 巨大的国内压力迫使日本制药商将目光投向海外。

An ageing population has put pressure on Japan's government-run healthcare system, which accounts for two-fifths of the country's drug spending. 人口老龄化给日本政府运作的医疗保健制度施压，这部分占该国药品支出的五分之二。

The health ministry is hard at work promoting generic drugs and pushing down prices. 卫生部在努力宣传非专利药和压低价格。

But few groups have taken as drastic action as 237-year-old Takeda, which in 2014 brought in as its leader a Frenchman, Christophe Weber. 但没有几个公司像武田制药这样采取了如此猛烈的行动，武田制药有237年的历史，2014年，法国人Christophe Weber加入公司任职CEO。

He has noted that Japan's drugs market is only 7% of the global one, and that "if we want to be successful, we have to be successful outside of Japan". 他注意到日本的药品市场仅占全球药品市场的7%，并强调称“如果我们想要成功，就必须在日本之外取得成功。”

A slim pipeline of new drugs and fiercer competition also boded ill for Takeda's revenues. 新药品的销售渠道缩减以及激烈的竞争也让武田制药的收益岌岌可危。

Slowing sales of Velcade, a cancer drug, were expected to wipe a fifth off its profits in the next few years. 抗癌药物Velcade的销售放缓，预计在未来几年内其收益将减少1/5.

The firm had only two new drugs with blockbuster potential in late-stage clinical trials. 在末期临床试验中，该公司仅有两种新药物前景广阔。

Buying Shire does help there: the drugmaker earns two-thirds of its revenues in America and its portfolio of rare-disease drugs will bolster Takeda's revenues. 收购夏尔确实有所帮助：这家制药商2/3的利润在美国，并且其罕见病药物组合将增加武田制药的收益。