AbbVie pays $63B to bring US drugmaker Allergan home amid war on drug prices

AbbVie's $63 billion takeover of Botox maker Allergan broadens pharmaceutical industry consolidation that may hinder campaigns by President Trump and both his allies and opponents in Congress to reduce prescription drug prices. The deal announced Tuesday between Chicago-based AbbVie and Allergan, headquartered in Dublin after its 2015 takeover by Actavis, is the latest of more than 40 pharmaceutical mergers this year with a combined value of $168 billion, according to data compiled by FactSet. Bristol-Myers Squibb agreed to buy Celgene for $74 billion in January, and Pfizer said earlier this month it would pay $11.4 billion for Array BioPharma.

"Assets of the quality of Allergan are not always available and certainly not at this value," AbbVie CEO Richard Gonzalez told investors during a conference call. "The transaction represents an opportunity to create significant value while putting us in an even stronger position to deliver sustainable long-term growth." The combination fortifies AbbVie and Allergan as reenergized congressional Democrats target patents that allow brand-name drugmakers to profit from blockbuster medications for a decade or longer. Last year, Trump's Food and Drug Administration approved the most generic drug applications ever, according to the White House, and the president signed legislation ending so-called gag clauses that kept pharmacists from telling patients when it would be cheaper to pay for medicines out of their own pockets.

The administration also published a blueprint with strategies for improving competition and negotiating lower list prices, and this year, the Republican-controlled Senate Finance Committee summoned industry executives to Washington to explain their pricing practices. "We're all trying to understand the sticker shock that many drugs generate," committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in February. "I've heard from people about skipping doses of their prescription drugs to make them last until the next paycheck. Of course, I'm not a doctor, but rationing of one's medicine doesn't sound like the safe prescription for health and wellness that Americans want."

While the Federal Trade Commission, which scrutinizes mergers that may drive up prices, required Bristol-Myers Squibb and Celgene to spin off the arthritis treatment Otezla as a condition of approval, AbbVie executives don't expect major antitrust obstacles. The firms have already agreed to spin off products in small areas of overlap to satisfy the FTC, AbbVvie Vice Chairman Laura Schumacher said Tuesday. Federal policy changes including universal healthcare coverage proposed by some Democratic presidential candidates didn't factor prominently into AbbVie's decision about the merger, Gonzalez said.

One of them is a "Medicare for all" bill from Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, that would enroll everyone living in the U.S. onto a government plan. Democratic senators hoping to run against Trump, from Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts to Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey, co-sponsored the measure. "We fundamentally believe that regardless of what happens in the environment, if you bring medicines to truly make a difference for patients, the systems ultimately will pay for those," said Gonzalez. "We see that in all the socialized medicine systems around the world, where we do extremely well with our products." Gaining access to Allergan's cosmetic treatments like Botox and Juvederm, which eliminate lines and wrinkles from aging and are typically paid for in cash because they're not covered by insurance, is helpful even though they will account for only about 10% to 12% of total sales, he said.

For the Trump administration, a significant benefit of the deal is that it would return Allergan's headquarters back to the U.S., delivering on the president's campaign commitment to bring home jobs that American companies had moved overseas. Allergan was based in Irvine, Calif., until its $66 billion acquisition by Actavis in 2015.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/business/abbvie-pays-63b-to-bring-us-drugmaker-allergan-home-amid-war-on-drug-prices

Appeals court sends census dispute back to Maryland judge

A federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, sent a challenge to the addition of a citizenship question to the census back to the lower court to determine whether the Trump administration acted with discriminatory intent when it decided to ask about citizenship. The divided three-judge panel on the 4thth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in an order Tuesday it was remanding the case back to the federal district court in Maryland for further proceedings on equal protection claims.

The ruling comes after immigrant rights groups presented U.S. District Court Judge George Hazel in Maryland with evidence discovered on hard drives belonging to Republican redistricting strategist Thomas Hofeller, who died in August. The records showed Hofeller spoke with a Commerce Department transition official about adding the citizenship question to the census. Emails found on Hofeller's devices also indicated the inclusion of the citizenship question would give Republicans and non-Hispanic whites a political advantage.

Hazel wrote in a filing Monday the evidence presented by the challengers "potentially connects the dots between a discriminatory purpose — diluting Hispanics' political power — and Secretary Ross's decision" and said there was enough evidence to reopen the case. "As more puzzle pieces are placed on the mat, a disturbing picture of the decisionmakers' motives takes shape," he said. The order from the Richmond-based court adds another wrinkle to the ongoing dispute over the Trump administration’s decision to add the citizenship question to the census.

Three district court judges — including the judge in Maryland — blocked the Commerce Department from asking about citizenship on the census, and the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the dispute in April. A ruling from the high court on whether the Trump administration can include the citizenship question on the census is expected as early as Wednesday. In that case, the challengers argued the Trump administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the Constitution in deciding to ask about citizenship on the census. But the discovery of the evidence from Hofeller has thrown an 11-hour twist into the disputes. While the Trump administration said it decided to add the citizenship question to the census to ensure better enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, states, major cities, and groups challenging the move argue the findings undercut those claims.

Immigrant rights groups notified the court in New York, which first heard the dispute, of the findings this month, but Judge Jesse Furman indicated he would wait for the Supreme Court to rule. Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the organizations, asked the Supreme Court this month to consider postponing its ruling in light of the new evidence. But the Justice Department has pushed back on the findings and the requests from the challengers. In a letter to the Supreme Court on Tuesday, Solicitor General Noel Francisco called the claim, based on Hofeller's records, that the Trump administration acted with discriminatory intent a “speculative conspiracy theory that is unsupported by the evidence and legally irrelevant.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/courts/appeals-court-sends-census-dispute-back-to-maryland-judge