Tag: Health Care

The Federal Trade Commission required generic drug marketers ANI Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Novitium Pharma LLC to divest, to Prasco LLC, ANI’s development rights to one generic drug and assets with respect to another generic drug as part of a settlement resolving charges that ANI’s $210 million acquisition of Novitium likely would be anticompetitive. According to the complaint, without a remedy, the acquisition would likely harm future competition in U.S. markets for both of these generic products. The order requires ANI and Novitium to divest ANI’s rights and assets to generic SMX-TMP oral suspension and generic dexamethasone tablets to Prasco within 10 days after the acquisition is final. On Jan. 12, 2022, the Commission announced the final consent order in this matter.

To settle FTC charges that its actions violated the antitrust laws, the Board of Dental Examiners of Alabama agreed to stop requiring on-site supervision by licensed dentists of alignment scans of prospective patients’ mouths seeking to address misaligned teeth or gaps between teeth. According to the complaint, the board amended a rule to prohibit dental hygienists and other non-dentist practitioners from performing scans inside a patient’s mouth without on-site dentist supervision. The complaint alleges that the Board unreasonably excluded from competition providers of teledentistry-based teeth alignment products and services, and that it did this without adequate active supervision from neutral state officials, in violation of the FTC Act. On Dec. 21, 2021, the FTC announced the final consent agreement in this matter.

Pharmaceutical and biologic manufacturers Bristol-Myers Squibb Company and Celgene Corporation agreed to divest Celgene’s Otezla, the most popular oral treatment in the United States for moderate-to-severe psoriasis, for $13.4 billion. The divestiture settled Federal Trade Commission charges that BMS’s proposed $74 billion acquisition of Celgene would violate federal antitrust law. Under the terms of the proposed consent order, the parties were required to divest Celgene’s worldwide Otezla business – including its regulatory approvals, intellectual property, contracts, and inventory – to Amgen, Inc. no later than 10 days after consummating the proposed acquisition. On Nov. 12, 2021, the Commission  announced that it has approved certain modifications to Bristol Meyers Squibb’s divestiture agreements.

In April 2020, the marketers of three supplements called Neurocet, Regenify, and Resetigen-D settled FTC charges that they deceptively promoted their products to older Americans using false claims that their products could stop pain and treat age-related ailments. The proposed order bars the defendants—five related companies and their principals from making any claims about the health benefits of their products unless they are true and supported by scientific evidence. In October 2021, the FTC announced it was returning $1.1 million to consumer who bought the defendants’ products.