Cleary’s Pharma Bites: Merger Control Trends in Pharma

Cleary Gottlieb’s Pharmaceutical, Biotech, and Healthcare group is pleased to present the latest installment of its “Pharma Bites” series: Merger Control Trends in Pharma.

• There are 150+ jurisdictions with a mandatory merger control regime. Global pharma deals are likely to trigger dozens of filings worldwide.
• Merger pharma enforcement has become less permissive in recent years: one in every five EU notified pharma deals in the last five years required remedies.
• Agencies increasingly consider narrow pharma markets at the ATC4/molecule level and take a microscopic look at any overlaps in lines of research/pipelines.
• Substantive analysis is driven by product overlaps: remedies likely in deals between close competitors with high shares and few alternatives.
• Agencies are focused on ways to ensure that strategic pharma acquisitions (e.g., Illumina/Grail) do not escape merger review.
• Agencies focus on remedy design and vet divestiture buyers carefully, especially for pipeline remedies.

To learn more about this topic and view the related slide deck, click here.

Cleary’s Pharma Bites series seeks to provide critical updates on a wide range of antitrust, regulatory, arbitration, and litigation issues in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology space. 

To learn more about Cleary’s Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology practice, click here.