ABT, STJ: Abbott Laboratories Gets OK to Buy St. Jude Medical, Inc.

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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has given its approval to Abbott Laboratories’ (NYSE:ABT) deal to acquire St. Jude Medical, Inc. (NYSE:STJ).

Abbott Laboratories, ABT, St. Jude Medical, Inc., STJThe FTC has certain conditions that Abbott Laboratories must fulfill to complete its acquisition of St. Jude Medical, Inc. One of these conditions is that it divests rights and assets for certain devices to Tokyo-based Terumo Corporation.

The rights and assets that it must divests are for vascular closure devices and steerable sheaths. St. Jude Medical, Inc. is the owner of the vascular closure devices and Abbott Laboratories owns the steerable sheaths. The companies must also help Terumo Corporation establish manufacturing for the devices. This condition was put in place to keep ABT from monopolizing the market for these devices.

There’s also another condition that the FTC has for Abbott Laboratories’ acquisition of St. Jude Medical, Inc. This is that it must inform the organization if it plans to purchase lesion-assessing ablation catheter assets from Advanced Cardiac Therapeutics.

Advanced Cardiac Therapeutics and St. Jude Medical, Inc. currently cover the market for lesion-assessing ablation catheters in the United States. This means that if Abbott Laboratories seeks to buy the lesion-assessing ablation catheters assets from Advanced Cardiac Therapeutics, it would corner the market for them in America.

There is also still a 30-day period of time before the FTC decides if it will give the final consent order for the acquisition to Abbott Laboratories. During this time, the organization will be accepting public comments. This will have the final decision taking place on Jan. 26, 2017.

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Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2016/12/abbott-laboratories-st-jude-medical-inc-abt-stj/.

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