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Background: The F.T.C. has contested business transactions.

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The F.T.C. has opposed corporate mergers under the Biden administration for grounds that go beyond conventional antitrust worries about competing products.

Lina the chair of the F.T.C., has shown strong skepticism against corporate mergers in the tech sector. An attempt was made by the agency to prevent Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, from purchasing a small virtual reality start-up, but it was unsuccessful. This was a rare instance of an acquisition being contested in a developing industry for an unproven product. the FTC's attempt to prevent the Amgen-Horizon merger due to bundling issues. is also uncommon. Michael Carrier, a specialist on antitrust concerns in the pharmaceutical business at Rutgers Law School, said, "It tells us that the F.T.C. is considering new theories of harm that have not been front and center before.” Why It Matters: Bundling may result in higher prescription pricing.

The F.T.C.'s worries about bundling in the Amgen-Horizon merger are related to worries about expensive prescription medications. The rebates that pharmaceutical firms provide to insurers and the industry middlemen known as pharmacy benefit managers in exchange for promoting their products have drawn more attention. A business can prevent rivals from obtaining market share or deter them from even trying to enter the market by giving significant discounts through

The medications treat chronic refractory gout as well as thyroid eye disease, an inflammatory disease.

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Regulators might have trouble enforcing Amgen's pledge to the F.T.C. not to combine the two Horizon products. Ameet Sarpatwari, a specialist in drug policy, noted that drug discussions are private and that manufacturers frequently find inventive ways to avoid them. Harvard Medical School's prescription drug policy. Amgen and Horizon declared that they would not back out of the agreement and would attempt to force the merger through the courts by the middle of December. A federal court in Illinois, where the F.T.C. filed its action, is likely to make the decision.

The outcome will be a "litmus test" for whether antitrust law can be used to encourage affordable access to drugs, according to Dr. Sarpatwari.

Nulla nunc lectus porttitor vitae pulvinar magna. Sed et lacus quis enim mattis nonummy sodales.