Pfizer has lost the final round in a long-running patent battle in the UK after the country’s highest court ruled against it in a case involving its €4.4bn-a-year pain drug Lyrica.

Ben Hirschler For Christophe Weber, the boss of Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical, securing a $62bn (€52bn) deal last week to buy drugmaker Shire at the fifth time of asking was the easy bit.