The U.S. FTC’s antitrust challenge to Amgen Inc.’s $27.8 billion acquisition of Horizon Therapeutics plc has been resolved. Amgen agreed to do what it said it would do all along: not bundle pharmacy benefit manager rebates on high volume blockbuster drugs Tepezza and Krystexxa.
The U.S. FTC has recalibrated its challenge to Amgen Inc.’s $27.8 billion acquisition of Horizon Therapeutics plc while one of the biggest trade groups has voiced its concerns about the government’s role in the deal. An amicus brief from the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), along with the Illinois Manufacturers Association, the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce and the Illinois Biotechnology Innovation Organization, calls the FTC expansion into such deals overreach that chills pro-competitive biopharma mergers.
The U.S. FTC picked up six allies in its unprecedented effort to stop Amgen Inc.’s $27.8 billion acquisition of Horizon Therapeutics plc, as the attorneys general for California, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Washington and Wisconsin joined the agency in signing onto an amended complaint filed under seal June 22 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
The U.S. FTC’s unprecedented antitrust challenge to Amgen Inc.’s $27.8 billion acquisition of Horizon Therapeutics plc, could be a disruptor to biotech investment if the agency is victorious, some analysts are warning. “With essentially zero commercial overlap [between the two companies], this deal would seem to be a slam dunk under long-established antitrust considerations,” said Christopher Raymond, a senior research analyst with Piper Sandler Research.
Sanofi SA’s antitrust challenge of Mylan Inc.’s “exclusionary conduct” in the epinephrine auto-injector market met the end of the road April 17 when the U.S. Supreme Court denied cert.
Citing significant implications for patients with advanced Parkinson’s disease, as well as the broader public interest that’s at stake, the U.S. FTC filed an amicus brief in Sage Chemical Inc.’s district court challenge of Supernus Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s strategies to block generic competition of its injectable Parkinson’s drug, Apokyn (apomorphine).
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released its annual premerger notification report, this one for fiscal year 2021, during which more than 3,400 transactions were reported under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act (HRS Act). Roughly 17% of these were valued at more than $1 billion, but the FTC is facing bad publicity with the resignation of the sole Republican member of the commission, Christine Wilson, who charged FTC chairwoman Lina Khan with abuse of power.
Taking aim at big pharma’s current penchant for acquisition over in-house innovation, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is asking the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to consider the impact a biopharma merger, whether it’s proposed or a done deal, may have on future innovation.
How many patents does it take to violate U.S. antitrust law? That question isn’t a lead-in to a lame joke. Neither is it a valid question for a patent challenge, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which Aug. 1 affirmed the dismissal of a payer suit against Abbvie Inc. that claimed the North Chicago drug company violated the Sherman Antitrust Act when it obtained 132 patents on Humira (adalimumab) and then invoked them against biosimilars.
