EDITORIAL: President Trump’s Federal Trade Commission is right to stop pharmaceutical monopolies
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson and President Donald Trump are delivering for American consumers once again. Here's why we support their latest moves.
President Donald Trump recently announced more successful work on lowering the cost of prescription drugs. The Washington Reporter strongly supports the president’s work. In the most recent announcement, two companies — one American and one European — agreed to slash costs on GLP drugs, also known as “the fat drug,” for overweight patients.
That’s great news. But here’s the problem. The European company — Novo Nordisk of Denmark — is trying to consolidate the obesity treatment market by buying a smaller company called Metsera that makes a similar weight-loss drug.
Earlier this year, both Novo and U.S.-based Pfizer competed to make the acquisition. As reported by Endpoints News, “Novo had originally tried buying Metsera during the biotech’s deal process, but Pfizer won out because of concerns over regulatory risks.” Last month, Pfizer and Metsera both submitted their filings to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for approval.
The Reporter’s position on antitrust enforcement is that it should rarely be used. Mergers and acquisitions are the core of capitalism and necessary for job growth and lower prices. Federal bureaucrats, in general, have no idea whether a merger is good for competition or bad for competition because they are federal bureaucrats. We think former FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan was a disaster for the economy.
But in some cases, mergers should be blocked because they are bad for competition. When it comes to Novo’s bid, this is clearly one of those cases.
We applaud the FTC’s notice to Novo earlier this week warning Novo that it is failing to follow premerger review rules. No company should be allowed to do an end-run around antitrust law.
President Trump’s FTC chairman, Andrew Ferguson, made it clear that he will go after anticompetitive behavior, especially in the healthcare industry and especially if foreign companies try to undercut American competitors. He made that exact point during his event with the Reporter earlier this year — his first public event as FTC Chairman.
Allowing a foreign company to gain a near-monopoly of the weight-loss drug market would be bad for Americans. Prices would go up. Republicans would pay a political price at the polls. And antitrust laws exist for such a case as this.
President Trump’s FTC is standing up for American patients. And the FTC has our thanks.