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As befits a deal in the medical industry, this one has been rather hard to swallow.
如醫藥行業的交易一樣，該起并購相當難以下咽。
But on December 5th, eight months after Takeda, Japan's largest pharmaceutical firm,
但12月5日，距日本最大醫藥公司武田制藥
said it was interested in buying Shire, an Irish-headquartered drugmaker of a similar size, shareholders at last voted to approve the acquisition.
稱有意收購夏爾（一家總部位于愛爾蘭的類似規模制藥商）八個月后，股東們最終投票同意收購。
The purchase will cost Takeda $56bn in cash and new shares. Since the initial news of the deal the firm's share price has fallen by 25%.
武田制藥將以現金和新股票的方式以560億美元價格收購該公司。自關于該筆交易的最初新聞曝光以來，該公司股價下跌25%。
Takeda's acquisition is unusual. It is by far the largest foreign buy-out ever executed by a Japanese firm
武田制藥的收購不同尋常。這是迄今為止日本公司實施的最大一筆國外收購
(even though the country's outbound merger-and-acquisition activity is surging).
（雖然，該國的外向收購兼并活動在增長）。
Nor was Shire considered a likely target. Acquiring firms usually seek new technologies or overlaps that allow cost-cutting.
夏爾也并非被認為是最有可能的目標。收購通常是瞄準了新的技術或是能夠消減成本的重合。
Shire does have a strong pipeline of new molecules, but the portfolio did not complement any large drugmakers' existing suite of drugs, including that of Takeda.
夏爾確實有強大的新分子市場渠道，但投資組合并不能彌補任何大型制藥商現存的藥物組成，包括武田制藥在內。
Powerful domestic pressures are encouraging Japanese drugmakers to look abroad.
巨大的國內壓力迫使日本制藥商將目光投向海外。
An ageing population has put pressure on Japan's government-run healthcare system, which accounts for two-fifths of the country's drug spending.
人口老齡化給日本政府運作的醫療保健制度施壓，這部分占該國藥品支出的五分之二。
The health ministry is hard at work promoting generic drugs and pushing down prices.
衛生部在努力宣傳非專利藥和壓低價格。
But few groups have taken as drastic action as 237-year-old Takeda, which in 2014 brought in as its leader a Frenchman, Christophe Weber.
但沒有幾個公司像武田制藥這樣采取了如此猛烈的行動，武田制藥有237年的歷史，2014年，法國人Christophe Weber加入公司任職CEO。
He has noted that Japan's drugs market is only 7% of the global one, and that "if we want to be successful, we have to be successful outside of Japan".
他注意到日本的藥品市場僅占全球藥品市場的7%，并強調稱“如果我們想要成功，就必須在日本之外取得成功。”
A slim pipeline of new drugs and fiercer competition also boded ill for Takeda's revenues.
新藥品的銷售渠道縮減以及激烈的競爭也讓武田制藥的收益岌岌可危。
Slowing sales of Velcade, a cancer drug, were expected to wipe a fifth off its profits in the next few years.
抗癌藥物Velcade的銷售放緩，預計在未來幾年內其收益將減少1/5.
The firm had only two new drugs with blockbuster potential in late-stage clinical trials.
在末期臨床試驗中，該公司僅有兩種新藥物前景廣闊。
Buying Shire does help there: the drugmaker earns two-thirds of its revenues in America and its portfolio of rare-disease drugs will bolster Takeda's revenues.
收購夏爾確實有所幫助：這家制藥商2/3的利潤在美國，并且其罕見病藥物組合將增加武田制藥的收益。
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