Antitrust Agencies Target Pharmaceutical Mergers In Enforcers Workshop And Lawsuit

Last month the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") sued to block the $27.8 billion acquisition of Horizon Therapeutics plc ("Horizon") by the biopharmaceutical corporation, Amgen Inc. ("Amgen"). The lawsuit was the latest move by the Biden Administration to tackle the high price of prescription drugs, which President Joe Biden described as "excessive" in his July 2021 Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy. Notably, this is the first FTC pharmaceutical merger challenge in over a decade. According to FTC Bureau of Competition Director Holly Vedova, the challenge is meant to send "a clear signal to the market: The FTC won't hesitate to challenge mergers that enable pharmaceutical conglomerates to entrench their monopolies at the expense of consumers and fair competition."