FTC calls out Il­lu­mi­na as 'mo­nop­o­list,' moves to block $1.2B ac­qui­si­tion of PacBio

When se­quenc­ing gi­ant Il­lu­mi­na re­vealed that it’s ac­quir­ing small­er ri­val Pa­cif­ic Bio­sciences for $1.2 bil­lion last year, CEO Fran­cis deS­ouza said the com­bi­na­tion of their own short-read tech­nol­o­gy and the small­er ri­val’s long-read ap­proach “will give con­sumers a more per­fect view of the genome.”

Per­haps too per­fect, the Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion sug­gests, for a sin­gle com­pa­ny to hawk.

The FTC’s five com­mis­sion­ers vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly to chal­lenge Il­lu­mi­na’s pro­posed takeover, set­ting an ad­min­is­tra­tive tri­al for Au­gust 18, 2020, while mov­ing to seek a tem­po­rary re­strain­ing or­der and pre­lim­i­nary in­junc­tion in fed­er­al court.

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