AstraZeneca Agrees to Buy ZS Pharma for $2.7 Billion

LONDON — The British drug maker AstraZeneca said on Friday that it had agreed to acquire ZS Pharma, a California-based biopharmaceutical company, for $2.7 billion in cash.  The transaction is expected to improve AstraZeneca’s pipeline of treatments for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases and comes as the British drug maker is set to lose exclusivity in the United States for its best-selling cholesterol treatment.