Tag: Horizontal

Pharmaceutical companies Impax Laboratories Inc. and CorePharma, LLC agreed to divest all of CorePharma’s rights and assets to generic pilocarpine tablets and generic ursodiol tablets, in order to settle FTC charges that Impax’s proposed $700 million acquisition of CorePharma would likely be anticompetitive. Without the divestitures required by the proposed order, the FTC alleges that the acquisition would reduce the number of future suppliers in the markets for generic pilocarpine tablets, which are used to treat dry mouth, and generic ursodiol tablets, which are used to treat biliary cirrhosis, a chronic disease of the liver, as well as gall bladder diseases. CorePharma’s entry as an independent competitor would likely have resulted in significantly lower prices for each of these drugs. According to the FTC’s complaint, there are currently only two suppliers in the market for generic pilocarpine tablets, and Impax and CorePharma are the only likely new entrants into this market in the near future. In the market for generic ursodiol tablets, there are currently four suppliers, including Impax. This market
has recently experienced supply shortages, which can diminish competition among suppliers. CorePharma is one of a limited number of firms likely to enter the generic ursodiol market in the near future.

On 4/8/2013, Bosley, Inc., the nation’s largest manager of medical/surgical hair restoration procedures, settled Federal Trade Commission charges that it illegally exchanged competitively sensitive, nonpublic information about its business practices with one of its competitors, HC (USA), Inc., commonly known as Hair Club, in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act. In settling the FTC’s charges, Bosley has agreed not to communicate such information in the future, and will institute an antitrust compliance program. The FTC alleged that for at least the past four years, Bosley exchanged competitively sensitive, nonpublic information about its business operations with Hair Club. The information exchanged by the companies’ CEOs included details about future product offerings, surgical hair transplantation price floors and discounts, plans for business expansion and contraction, and current business operations and performance.