Irish drugmaker seeks US takeover

The Irish drugmaker Shire said Tuesday that it wanted to purchase a newly formed American competitor, Baxalta, for around $30 billion.

Shire, which another American drugmaker tried to buy last year, said combining the two companies would create a world leader in combating rare diseases. 

{mosads}Baxalta, the former biopharmaceutical arm of Baxter International, formally became a company in July.

In a release, Shire said that the Irish tax system would help grow the combined company and improve its earnings. Shire publicly acknowledged its offer after Baxalta didn’t respond to its efforts.

The attempted purchase is just the latest potential merger among pharmaceutical companies where taxes have played a key role.

AbbVie, a U.S. drugmaker, walked away from a deal to purchase Shire last year that was said to be north of $50 billion, after the Obama administration released new rules meant to make the offshore tax deals, known as inversions, less attractive. 

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is seeking to revamp the international tax structure for multinational corporations this fall, in part because of the inversion issue and the fear that the U.S. tax system will both drive away domestic companies and make them more attractive to foreign takeover.