The nation’s two largest institutional pharmacy services providers will not be joining forces. Omnicare abandoned its takeover attempt of PharMerica in late February.
The writing was on the wall a few weeks earlier, when the Federal Trade Commission filed suit in attempt to halt the deal. PharMerica officials added their voices to the complaint, making a blockbuster deal all the more unlikely.
Omnicare officials said in a statement that it was not “prudent to invest significant time and money in a lawsuit at this time.” In response, the FTC voted to dismiss its lawsuit.
The trade commission’s suit had asserted that an Omnicare-PharMerica merger would control 57% of the pharmacy services market in long-term care. It also forecast that competition would suffer and Medicare-covered drug prices would likely rise.
Omnicare owns more than 200 long-term care pharmacies; PharMerica owns 97.
Omnicare first made public a $457 million offer for PharMerica in September. PharMerica officials immediately rebuffed the unsolicited offer, citing uncertainty that such a deal would pass regulatory review. They also claimed the price was too low.
From the April 01, 2012 Issue of McKnight's Long-Term Care News
