Roche acquisition of Spark now also approved by FTC

Following Monday morning’s notice of clearance from the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, later the same day the USA’s Federal Trade Commission revealed closure of its investigation into Swiss pharma giant Roche’s (ROG: SIX) proposed $4.3 billion acquisition of Spark Therapeutics (Nasdaq: ONCE).

According to a  Commission Statement, after an exhaustive, 10-month investigation into whether the merger would lessen potential competition in the US market for hemophilia A therapies, the evidence “did not indicate that Roche would have the incentive to delay or terminate Spark’s developmental effort for its hemophilia A gene therapy, or that the acquisition would affect Roche’s incentives regarding [its hemophilia treatment drug] Hemlibra [emicizumab-kxwh].”

The Commission vote to close the investigation was 5-0.