THE Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has confirmed it will not oppose the proposed acquisition of Pfizer's consumer healthcare business in Australia by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) (PD breaking news yesterday).
The ACCC said the proposed deal combines only their over-the-counter businesses, including Panadol, Voltaren and Advil as well as gastrointestinal and cold and flu products.
"After conducting market inquiries and analysing documents and data provided by GSK and Pfizer, the ACCC considers that the transaction will not substantially lessen competition in any market in Australia," according to the Commission.
Commissioner Roger Featherston said the ACCC had found that Reckitt Benckiser's Nurofen would compete strongly with the pain medication produced by a combined GSK/Pfizer and he added that generic competition would also moderate the impact.
The arrangement has had a long gestation period with Pfizer having been courted by GSK and Reckitt Benckiser (RB) (PD 05 Feb 2018) along the way.
Both GSK and RB dropped out of the race (PD 26 Mar 2018) then Procter and Gamble (P&G) came into play (PD 04 Apr 2018), before GSK and Pfizer came to the joint venture agreement (PD 20 Dec 2018) that has now been accepted by the ACCC.
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