predecessors in the Clinton administration wrote, “Careful, intense factual investigation is necessary” when evaluating the competitive effects of antitrust on innovation., whose antitrust policies endanger innovation. The FTC has abandoned antitrust law’s long-standing focus on protecting consumers and radically expanded the scope of its authority to police “unfair methods of competition” — now effectively defined in terms of a “we know it when we see it” standard.
Illumina, a leading provider of next-generation DNA sequencing platforms, acquired GRAIL, developer of the groundbreaking Galleri multicancer early detection test. Galleri examines fragments of DNA in a patient’s blood sample to identify cancerous cells in asymptomatic patients. It is a generation-defining breakthrough against cancer, and no similar tests are on the horizon. To analyze the DNA in the blood samples, GRAIL uses Illumina’s sequencing platforms.
Exactly the opposite is true. The Illumina-GRAIL merger will likely benefit consumers by providing them with life-saving technologies more quickly and at lower prices. Meanwhile, the alleged “harms to competition” are based not on facts but speculations about a market that is predicted to exist many years in the future. The FTC’s double standard thus perversely turns the Clinton FTC’s warnings about innovation on their head.