In this episode of S&C’s Critical Insights, Melissa Sawyer, the Global Head of S&C’s M&A practice, is joined by the Co-Heads of the Firm’s Antitrust group, Renata Hesse and Juan Rodriguez, to discuss recent developments surrounding the vertical merger of Illumina and GRAIL, which make DNA sequencing devices and blood-based tests for cancer screening, respectively.
In the United States, an administrative law judge recently denied the Federal Trade Commission’s request to prohibit the transaction on competition grounds. In Europe, the European Commission opened a highly publicized suspensory investigation into the transaction, which is seen as a test case for the EC’s recently revised policy on reviewing mergers that do not require mandatory reporting to the EC. The partners discuss these developments and how they might impact M&A deals going forward, especially in the pharmaceutical and tech sectors.