Tag: Health Care

The FTC authorized its staff to file a motion for a preliminary injunction to block the proposed acquisition of Doctors Regional Medical Center in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. On July 30, 1998, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri granted the Commission's motion for the injunction. Tenet filed a notice of appeal in the Eighth Circuit on August 10, 1998. An administrative complaint was issued August 20, 1998 charging that the proposed merger of the only two general hospitals in Poplar Bluff would not only eliminate price, cost and quality competition but would also put consumers at risk of paying more for health care. In December 1999, the Commission dismissed the administrative complaint after the Eighth Circuit reversed the district court's decision and denied Commission’s petition for a rehearing en banc.

Final order settles charges that Sorin Biomedica S.p.A.'s acquisition of COBE Cardiovascular, Inc. would eliminate competition in the United states market for research, development, manufacture and sale of heart-lung machines. The order permits the acquisition and requires the divestiture of COBE's heart-lung machine business to Baxter Healthcare Corporation

Physicians practicing in the North and South Lake Tahoe areas settled charges that they conspired to fix the prices and terms for professional services. The consent order prohibits the IPA from engaging in collective negotiations to fix prices; refusing to deal with third party payers; and coercing payers into accepting PA fee schedules and minimum reimbursement rates.

Consent order, resolving antitrust concerns relating to Zeneca's merger with Astra AB requires the divestiture of all assets relating to levobupivacaine, a long-acting local anesthetic. The assets were sold to Chiroscience Group plc, the developer of levobupivacaine.

Medtronic agreed to divest Avecor Cardiovascular, Inc.'s non-occlusive arterial pump assets to settle antitrust concerns that the acquisition would lessen competition for the research, development, manufacture and sale of the pumps in the United States. The order requires Medtronic to provide assistance to the buyer of the Avecor Pump assets to enable the buyer to obtain FDA approval to manufacture and market the Avecor pumps an reservoirs.

A Colorado physicians' organization settled charges alleging that the Mesa County IPA conspired with its members to increase prices for physician services and thereby prevented third party payers such as preferred provider organizations, health maintenance organizations, and employer health care purchasing cooperatives from offering alternative health insurance programs to consumers in Mesa County.

A pharmacy association in northern Puerto Rico and Ricardo Alvarez Class settled charges that they engaged in an illegal boycott in an attempt to obtain higher reimbursement rates for pharmacy goods and services under the government's managed care plan for the indigent. The consent order prohibits the members of the association and Mr. Class from engaging in joint negotiations for prices and from threatening to boycott or refusing to provide pharmacy services.

The complaint, issued with the consent order, alleged that as a result of Merck's 1993 acquisition of Medco, the nation's largest benefits manager, Merck's drugs received favorable treatment through Medco's drug-list formulary made available to medical professionals who prescribe and dispense prescriptions to health plan beneficiaries. The consent order requires Medco, among other things, to maintain an "open formulary" to include drugs approved by an independent Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee, staffed by physicians and pharmacologists who have no financial interest in Merck.