Shire's M&A stepping stone

Shire plc's unsolicited $30 billion bid for Baxalta Inc. may be transformative in creating a leading rare disease company, but not as an end game in itself. Rather, a merger could provide Shire with the financial firepower to pursue M&A deals in rare diseases that the biotech may not have been able to complete as a stand-alone company.

Shire management is pitching the deal as the coming together of two complementary product portfolios and pipelines with a strategy in rare diseases that would provide benefits to both companies by way of commercial, manufacturing and tax synergies...