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The U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s new healthcare task force, announced last month, highlights antitrust enforcers’ heightened focus on the health care sector, attorneys say.

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FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson said in a memorandum announcing the task force that it would include representatives from the agency’s competition, consumer protection, economics, policy planning and technology bureaus. Meeting monthly, the group will develop “coherent agency-wide strategies on new and nascent investigations,” Ferguson said.

In the memo, Ferguson also touted several recent FTC enforcement accomplishments, including blocking Edwards Lifesciences’ proposed acquisition of rival device company JenaValve; a settlement with pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts that required the Cigna subsidiary to change its business practices to resolve claims that it inflated insulin drug prices; and a restraining order against a company accused of deceptively marketing health plans.

Attorneys say that the new task force, together with the agency’s record so far under Ferguson, underscores a continued focus on antitrust issues in health care that stretches back through several presidential administrations.

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<strong>Amanda Wait</strong>, a partner at Michael Best &amp; Friedrich said it was “a little bit like the maintenance light on your car. It starts blinking and then you realize this is what you were supposed to be doing all along.”

That means taking a “really hard look” at any practice that may limit employees’ mobility, like noncompete agreements, which some organizations may not even realize that they have, Wait said. It also means carefully reviewing “any kind of collaboration,” like a joint venture between two companies or a group of physicians working together to operate an ambulatory surgical center, for antitrust issues.

<em>Read the full article on Law.com.</em>

Close-up of a stethoscope resting on a reflective surface under bright lighting.

Amanda L. Wait

Antitrust & Competition

Healthcare

Wait quoted in Law.com article, “New FTC Task Force Adds to Evidence Agency Is Doubling Down on Health Care”

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Wait quoted in Law.com article, “New FTC Task Force Adds to Evidence Agency Is Doubling Down on Health Care”

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