The case describes the lead-up to the offer to acquire Baxalta Inc by Shire PLC in the summer of 2015, weeks after Baxalta was spun out of Baxter’s BioScience business. The setting is the biopharmaceutical sector – the fastest-growing in the global pharmaceutical industry in 2014, when M&As reached a record $219.4 billion.

An international pharmaceutical company must decide on the pricing and access strategy for the first targeted medicine approved in China to treat advanced non-small cell lung cancer, a high mortality condition, in ALK-positive patients.