After years of battling to retain its hold on Grail Inc., Illumina Inc. finally announced that it will be unwinding the ill-fated acquisition of the multi-cancer early detection test maker. In addition to stiff opposition from activist investor Carl Icahn that cost Illumina’s previous CEO and board chair their positions, European and U.S. regulators have consistently opposed the deal.
In a historic first, the European Commission (EC) sanctioned a pharmaceutical cartel focused on controlling an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) in the European Economic Area.
The European Commission (EC) has ordered Illumina Inc. to sell Grail Inc. after it closed the acquisition without approval from EU regulators. The EC said that if Illumina fails to comply with the order, the company faces fines of up to 5% of its daily aggregate revenue or up to 10% of its annual worldwide revenue.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued the final order concluding an action against Baxter International Inc. over the company’s use of accounting mechanisms to produce gains by manipulating foreign exchange transactions. While these activities are said to have been undertaken entirely at the behest of only two employees, the agreement will cost Baxter $18 million and serves as a cautionary tale about a lack of supervision of employees charged with managing company funds.
The European Commission has granted CE mark approval to Medtronic plc for its Inceptiv closed-loop rechargeable spinal cord stimulator (SCS). The device is the first Medtronic SCS to sense an individual’s biological cues and make adjustments in real time to control pain all day long. Dublin-based Medtronic plans to launch Inceptiv in Europe in the coming months.
The European Commission’s (EC’s) Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety recently published a survey of notified bodies. This was conducted between April and May 2023, eliciting responses from all 39 notified bodies designated under the Medical Devices Regulation (MDR) and 10 Notified bodies designated under the In Vitro Diagnostic Regulation (IVDR).
A recent bipartisan request for funding of a study on replacing U.S. drug patents with cash prizes is just one more symptom of a larger global malady that makes patents the scapegoat for bigger problems that have nothing to do with intellectual property (IP), David Kappos, board co-chair of the Council for Innovation Promotion (C4IP), told BioWorld.
A recent bipartisan request for funding of a study on replacing U.S. drug patents with cash prizes is just one more symptom of a larger global malady that makes patents the scapegoat for bigger problems that have nothing to do with intellectual property (IP), David Kappos, board co-chair of the Council for Innovation Promotion (C4IP), told BioWorld.
The European Commission (EC) fined Illumina Inc. a record €432 million (US$476 million) for closing the acquisition of Grail Inc. before receiving regulatory approval. It is the highest fine ever imposed on a company by the EC for completing a deal without its consent. Grail was fined €1,000. The companies were found to be in breach of EU merger control rules.
The European Innovation Council (EIC) equity fund will no longer be managed internally by the European Commission (EC) after September. Alterdomus Management Co. SA, a Luxembourg-based fund manager, will make the final decisions on which life science companies to invest in. The aim is to optimize how the EU’s main tool for driving innovation and economic growth in Europe operates.
