FTC pledges to ag­gres­sive­ly crack down on phar­ma merg­ers

The Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion said Tues­day that it’s set­ting up an in­ter­na­tion­al work­ing group to more close­ly eval­u­ate phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny merg­ers in light of con­cerns around drug pric­ing and an­ti­com­pet­i­tive be­hav­ior.

The FTC, which is now run by De­moc­rats who pre­vi­ous­ly dis­sent­ed on sev­er­al pri­or phar­ma megamerg­ers, said the work­ing group will con­sid­er new merg­ers in light of phar­ma com­pa­nies’ con­duct, such as price fix­ing, re­verse pay­ments, and oth­er reg­u­la­to­ry abus­es. The group will be com­prised of state at­tor­neys gen­er­al, the De­part­ment of Jus­tice, as well as UK, Eu­ro­pean and Cana­di­an reg­u­la­to­ry coun­ter­parts.

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