ACCC ticks Pfizer-Hospira
August 14, 2015
Flagged for completion this
year, the Pfizer acquisition of
Hospira originally announced in Feb
this year (PD 06 Feb) and approved
by Hospira shareholders (PD 15
May) has now been approved by
the Australian Competition and
Consumer Commission (ACCC) on
the basis that it “was unlikely to
substantially lessen competition in
any relevant market”.
The proposed US$17 billion
global deal was opened for
public scrutiny by the ACCC two
months ago (PD 04 Jun) with the
Commission identifying the supply
of six biological pharmaceutical
molecules and their biosimilars as
potential areas of concern.
These included adalimumab,
bevacizumab, etanercept,
infliximab, rituximab and
trastuzumab.
A number of small molecule
products were also evaluated for
competition concerns, but the
overall analysis led the ACCC to
conclude it would not oppose the
acquisition.
The merged firm would continue
to be competitively constrained by
a number of alternative suppliers,
the ACCC said, with some of the
small molecules being old, low
value, well-known drugs that
have been subject to generic competition for some time.
Although Pfizer and Hospira
are the only suppliers of
heparin IV, they supply different
presentations that have unique
clinical applications and therefore
there is “limited demand-side
substitutability between these
presentations”.
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