OSAKA/TOKYO — Japanese pharmaceutical manufacturer Shionogi is set to buy Japan Tobacco’s drug businesses, a deal that totals around 150 billion yen ($1 billion) combined, Nikkei has learned, highlighting the growing number of merger deals amid increasing research costs for new medicines.
The move follows the $3.5 billion deal announcement in Febru that the U.S. investment fund Bain Capital agreed to buy Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma from Mitsubishi Chemical Group.
