As Ab­b­Vie and Soli­ton shake hands on a $550M merg­er, the FTC says 'not so fast'

Back in May, Ab­b­Vie’s Al­ler­gan Aes­thet­ics unit signed away $550 mil­lion in cash to scoop up drug­mak­er Soli­ton and its body sculpt­ing de­vice Reson­ic. Now, the FTC is re­quest­ing a bit more time to re­view the pro­posed merg­er.

On Aug. 6, Soli­ton and Ab­b­Vie each re­ceived a re­quest from the FTC for “ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion and doc­u­men­tary ma­te­r­i­al,” Soli­ton said in an SEC fil­ing. The hold-up shouldn’t set the com­pa­nies back too far, as they still ex­pect to close on the merg­er this year. But the FTC’s move in­di­cates that new chair Lina Khan is start­ing to make good on her promise to roll back re­stric­tions on an­titrust in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

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