Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.'s Chief Executive Officer Christophe Weber navigated rebuffs, critics and a plunging stock price to win a $62 billion (¥6.8 trillion) deal to acquire larger rival Shire Plc.
Integrating the Japanese drugmaker — which began by selling herbal therapies 237 years ago — with the sprawling Irish company will be even more complicated.
As the Osaka-based company's first foreign head, Weber is overseeing a dramatic makeover that will reshape Takeda into a global powerhouse with a plum suite of drugs for rare diseases. But it also leaves him with a pile of debt and the task of bringing together two companies of different sizes, cultures and areas of focus in the drug industry.