Spotlight Turns to Health Industry Vertical Mergers

A new wave of vertical mergers, including those in the health-care industry, may attract unprecedented attention from antitrust agencies, lawmakers, and the public. Federal and state antitrust enforcers traditionally don’t closely scrutinize mergers between companies that don’t compete in the same product, service, or geographic markets. A proposed nearly $70 billion merger between CVS Health Corp. and Aetna Inc., however, already has attracted a level of attention that suggests vertical mergers may not get through as easily as they did in the past. Outside the health-care industry, the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division is challenging a vertical merger in the ...