radar Health Law Scan

Legal Insights and Perspectives for the Healthcare Industry
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently voted to withdraw its approval of the Vertical Merger Guidelines (the 2020 VMGs), which, as we covered in the past, the FTC and Department of Justice (DOJ) issued over a year ago on June 30, 2020. The vote on September 15, 2021 to rescind the policy statement broke along party lines, with the three Democratic commissioners—Chair Lina Kahn and Commissioners Rohit Chopra and Rebecca Slaughter—outweighing their two Republican colleagues—Commissioners Noah Joshua Phillips and Christine S. Wilson.
In the most recent edition of our Global Healthcare Transactions Series, we focus on the Asia-Pacific region, which saw a wave of healthcare activity in 2020 including record high deals and a new peak for disclosed value. These gains can be attributed to macroeconomic trends such as aging populations and increasingly affordable healthcare, and favorable government policies encouraging local manufacturing and development of healthcare products.
Our healthcare team recently launched a publication series highlighting the global impact of COVID-19 on healthcare transactions. Around the globe, the healthcare industry has faced similar issues from the unprecedented pandemic, prioritizing their operational response to COVID-19. Now, as countries begin to reopen, healthcare entities may refocus on planning for long-term transformation of their business models. In this series, we will explore how the pandemic impacted healthcare transactions in specific regions and what we can expect in a post-pandemic world.