Bristol-Myers Squibb wins antitrust approval to buy Celgene, but must divest psoriasis drug

FAN Editor
Logo of global biopharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb is pictured on the blouse of an employee in Le Passage
FILE PHOTO: Logo of global biopharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb is pictured on the blouse of an employee in Le Passage, near Agen, France March 29, 2018. REUTERS/Regis Duvignau

November 15, 2019

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Bristol-Myers Squibb Co <BMY.N> and Celgene Corp <CELG.O> have won U.S. antitrust approval for their merger on condition that they sell Celgene’s psoriasis drug Otezla, the Federal Trade Commission said in a statement on Friday.

Bristol-Myers Squibb said the decision meant it had all the needed regulatory approvals and would close the acquisition on Wednesday.

Amgen has agreed to buy Celgene’s Otezla business, the company said in a statement. The Otezla sale was valued at $13.4 billion.

Bristol-Myers Squibb announced in January it would buy Celgene Corp in a cash-and-stock deal for about $74 billion, combining two of the world’s largest cancer drug businesses in the biggest pharmaceutical deal ever.

The proposed divestiture is the largest that the FTC or the U.S. Department of Justice have ever required in a merger enforcement matter, the FTC said in its statement.

“The Commission has ordered BMS to divest Otezla to preserve BMS’s incentive to continue developing its own oral product for treating moderate-to-severe psoriasis,” FTC Chairman Joseph Simons said in a statement.

The five members of the FTC split along party lines on whether to approve the proposed merger, with the three Republicans in favor and two Democrats opposed.

Rebecca Slaughter, who voted to oppose the deal, argued that the FTC’s approach of demanding divestitures only if the two companies sell treatments for the same ailment was “too narrow.”

“The commission should more broadly consider whether any pharmaceutical merger is likely to exacerbate anticompetitive conduct by the merged firm or to hinder innovation,” she said in a dissenting statement.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz in Washington; Editing by Tom Brown and Matthew Lewis)

Free America Network Articles

Leave a Reply

Next Post

AOC takes Taylor Swift's side in feud with private equity firm, Carlyle Group

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) speaks during the Climate Crisis Summit before introducing Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (I-VT) at Drake University on November 9, 2019 in Des Moines, Iowa. Ocasio-Cortez has been campaigning in support of Sanders after endorsing him last month in New York City. Stephen Maturen | […]