I am not unsympathetic to your points about it being a lower margin business and thus far not having a clear path to profitability. My guess would be the company wasn't for sale when Shell did the deal.
The attraction to me is on valuation and basically getting a free call option (I figure cash+Pharma revenues values rest of company at nothing) on them getting their act to profitability together especially as the other segments start producing (non-R&D funding) revenues.
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