Tag: Health Care

Roche agreed to divest, certain assets in the U.S. and Canada to settle antitrust concerns stemming from its proposed acquisition of Corange Limited. The consent order permits the acquisition but requires the divestiture of Cardiac thrombolytic agents (drugs used to treat heart attack victims) and ongoing business assets relating to chemicals used to test for the presence of illegal or abused drugs.

The Commission negotiated an agreement with The Hearst Corporation (Hearst) to settle a permanent injunction action filed by the FTC alleging that Hearst failed to provide documents required by premerger notification law and then consummated a merger that monopolized the integrated drug information database market. Under the terms of the order, Hearst divested the Medi-Span business to Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc. , a subsidiary of Wolters Kluwer, n.v., disgorged $19 million in profits, and to complied with certain other obligations.

A consent order settled allegations in an administrative complaint that charged that Hoechst agreed to pay Andrx Corporation millions of dollars not to market and distribute a generic version of Hoechst’s branded Cardizem CD, a once-a-day diltiazem drug product used in the treatment of hypertension and angina. The consent order prohibits the companies from entering into agreements designed to restrict the entry of generic competitors in an attempt to monopolize relevant markets .

An association of 86 physicians practicing in the Fairbanks, Alaska area settled charges that the Alaskan Healthcare Network illegally formulated a fee schedule based on its members’ current prices for use in negotiations with third-party payers in an effort to obtain higher prices for medical services.