European Commission conditionally approves Abbott’s acquisition of Alere
- 26/01/2017
- Articles
On 25 January 2017, the European Commission conditionally approved the acquisition of Alere by Abbott under the EU Merger Regulation.
The transaction was originally notified to the Commission on 15 April 2016. In the intervening period, Alere successfully obtained orders from a Delaware court requiring Abbott to complete the transaction and promptly obtain all the necessary antitrust approvals required by the merger agreement.
Both Abbott and Alere supply clinical test systems, known as in-vitro diagnostics (IVD). In Europe, the parties’ activities overlap and they compete closely in two IVD systems used in the testing of blood gases and cardiac markers. In particular, Abbott and Alere produce the only handheld point of care systems for blood gases, which assess test samples on location. For cardiac markers, Abbott’s and Alere's cardiac instruments are functionally similar and compete for use in hospitals. In order to address the Commission’s competition concerns, Abbott offered to fully divest Alere's global IVD business for blood gases and cardiac markers.
In addition, the Commission found that the proposed merger would risk affecting the ability of Danaher, another supplier of IVD systems, to compete for laboratory systems running B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) tests. Such BNP tests are used to check for heart failure. The Commission found that Danaher relied heavily on Alere to supply essential inputs for the production of BNP reagents for Danaher’s laboratory devices. The Commission was concerned that Abbott could have stopped selling BNP tests for Danaher's machines which would have made Danaher's systems less attractive and decreased competition for such laboratory systems. In order to address these concerns, Abbott committed to fully divest the Alere BNP reagents business that commercialises a BNP test with Danaher.