Alex Kacik: Hello and welcome back to Modern Healthcare's Beyond the Byline, where we offer a behind the scenes look into our reporting. I'm your host, Alex Kacik. I write about hospital operations for Modern Healthcare. It's earning season so I wanted to bring in insurance…
Thursday, February 11, 2021
Marisa E. Poncia
Despite initial obstacles because of the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 rounded out to be the busiest year for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) enforcement in the United States in nearly two decades. In the fourth quarter, US agencies challenged five transactions. November 2020 saw the most premerger filings in any month since 2001. Mergers and filings in the United States are predicted to remain at high levels into the new year in light of the current economic climate. The antitrust agencies have continued to maintain that their evaluation and investigation of anticompetitive harm will remain rigorous despite the uncertain times.
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WELLESLEY, Mass. and WATERTOWN, Mass., Feb. 4, 2021 /PRNewswire/ In their first joint community investment, the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation and Tufts Health Plan Foundation are giving $1 million to 42 organizations across the region to expand vaccine education, awareness and outreach in communities of color. Eight Connecticut organizations will receive a total of $225,000 in funding. Just one month after Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Tufts Health Plan announced their combined organization, this investment is an immediate response to emerging needs in Black and Brown communities across the region disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. We are at an inflection point in the pandemic, said Thomas Croswell, chief executive officer of the combined organization
1. FTC approves Otto Bock HealthCare North America, Inc.’s application to divest assets in prosthetic knee merger.
On Dec. 1, 2020, the FTC announced its approval of an application by prosthetics manufacturer Otto Bock HealthCare North America Inc. to divest certain assets it acquired when it consummated its acquisition of FIH Group Holdings LLC (Freedom Innovations), including all microprocessor prosthetic knee (MPK) products and technology.
Otto Bock completed its acquisition of Freedom Innovations in September 2017, and FTC filed an administrative complaint in December of that year. In November 2019, upholding an administrative law judge’s decision, the FTC unanimously found that the merger was anticompetitive, and it issued the final order requiring Otto Bock to divest the Freedom Innovations business, with limited exceptions. The Commission vote to approve the application was 5-0.