Takeda Expands Cancer Business with $4.66 Billion Ariad Deal

Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. will expand its footprint in the U.S. oncology market with the $4.66 billion purchase of Ariad Pharmaceuticals Inc., adding one potential blockbuster in lung cancer and another already on-the-market therapy.

Takeda will pay $24 a share for Ariad, the companies said in a statement Jan. 9, 75 percent more than its Jan. 6 close of $13.74. The deal will give it Ariad’s drug brigatinib, an experimental therapy being tested in lung cancer, and Iclusig, which is estimated to have brought in $170.5 million in 2016.

The announcement came at the start of the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference ...