Shire has confirmed that it received three conditional acquisition proposals from Takeda, but it rejected them, including the largest offer for approximately £44 billion ($62 billion). Shire says it continues to have discussions with Takeda. Meanwhile, Allergan confirmed it is not making an offer for Shire. Read More

Procter & Gamble (P&G) has agreed to acquire the consumer health business of Merck KGaA for approximately EUR 3.4 billion ($4.2 billion). The $1-billion consumer health business of Merck KGaA grew 6% over the past two years. Read More

Sanofi and Advent, a private-equity firm, have entered into negotiations under which Advent would acquire Zentiva, Sanofi’s European generics business, for EUR 1.9 billion ($2.4 billion)​. Read More

Shire has agreed to sell its oncology business to Servier, a Suresnes, France-based pharmaceutical company, for $2.4 billion. Servier said that the move would strengthen its presence in the US. Read More

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has agreed to transfer its portfolio of approved and investigational rare-disease gene therapies to Orchard Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company. With the deal, GSK will take a 19.9% equity stake in the company. Read More

Mayne Pharma, an Australian pharmaceutical company, and its CDMO business, Metrics Contract Services, have opened a new $80-million, oral solid-dose commercial manufacturing facility in Greenville, North Carolina. Read More

Roche’s Genentech has signed a license agreement with Kineta Chronic Pain, a subsidiary of Kineta, a biopharmaceutical company, to develop Kineta's α9/α10 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor antagonists for treating chronic pain in a deal worth up to $359 million. Read More

Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) and Illumina, a molecular diagnostics company, have partnered to use Illumina’s sequencing technology to develop and globally commercialize  in-vitro  diagnostic assays in support of BMS’ oncology portfolio. Read More

The European Medicines Agency has reallocated approximately 370 medicines of the UK’s portfolio of centrally authorized products in anticipation of Brexit, the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union. The new rapporteurships will be communicated to relevant marketing authorization holders before the end of April 2018. Read More

A new report by the European Medicines Agency details an increase in GMP inspections at active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) facilities as part of cooperation among European, US, and Australian regulatory authorities and the World Health Organization to share information. Read More