On June 14 and 15, 2022, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and
Department of Justice Antitrust Division (DOJ) hosted a workshop
entitled “The Future of Pharmaceuticals: Examining the
Analysis of Pharmaceutical Mergers” to explore new ways of
examining mergers and acquisitions in the pharmaceutical industry.
The workshop was the culmination of the Multilateral Pharmaceutical
Merger Task Force, launched in March 2021, by then-Acting
Chairwoman Rebecca Kelly Slaughter. Over the two-day workshop,
panels of lawyers, academics, economists, and enforcers expressed
their concerns about antitrust enforcement in the pharmaceutical
industry and opinions about how to it. The panelists primarily
advocated for stronger and more expansive government enforcement in
the pharmaceutical industry and discussed concerns over increased
market concentration, elimination of innovation competition, and
the insufficiency of divestiture remedies.