British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline announced Wednesday the acquisition of a drug under development to treat a common form of liver disease, in a deal worth up to $2 billion.

In recent years, the U.K.-listed pharma giant has called increasingly on U.S. law firms for its transactional work.

GSK is acquiring an experimental medicine from a Cambridge biotech to shore up its drug pipeline and muscle into the promising field of liver therapies.