Professor Chris Sagers, with co-author Rick Brunell, General Counsel of the American Antitrust Institute, published a new article in the widely read Antitrust Bulletin.  Their article, ​”FTC v. Lundbeck:  Is Anything in Antitrust Obvious, Like, Ever?,” 59 Antitrust Bull. 557 (2014), considers the Federal Trade Commission’s 2011 loss in antitrust challenge to the acquisition by Lundbeck, a drug maker, of a drug to treat a heart defect in premature babies.  Because the drug was one of only two such drugs in existence, and Lundbeck already owned the other, the deal was effectively a merger to monopoly, and almost immediately following it Lundbeck increased the price of both drugs by more than 1400%.  The Commission nevertheless lost the case.  Brunell and Sagers discuss how that could have happened, why it should not have, and what the Commission’s loss says about the state of competition policy.

Brunell and Sagers also filed an amicus brief in the Lundbeck litigation on behalf of the Commission. Sagers previously blogged about the case here (and that post was quoted by FTC Commissioner Thomas Rosch here).