Antitrust Trends in Technology, Life Sciences, and Healthcare

Healthcare remains a key area of focus for antitrust regulators in the first six months of the Trump administration. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) have for the most part stuck to prior positions taken in the healthcare space, including closely scrutinizing deals between direct competitors, pushing for lower healthcare and drug prices, and expressing concern over increasing consolidation of physician practices. However, the FTC and DOJ are not blaming these issues on the involvement of private equity and alleged “corporate greed” as was the case under the Biden administration, preferring instead to highlight regulatory burdens that act as barriers to entry and focusing on new healthcare policy initiatives. Additionally, the FTC and DOJ have demonstrated willingness to clear deals through settlements known as consent decrees, which involve divestitures or behavioral commitments by merging parties to take certain actions post-closing, an approach disfavored under the Biden-era.

The first half of 2025 has seen an acceleration of M&A activity, including large-scale life sciences transactions, such as Merck’s $3.9 billion acquisition of SpringWorks, Sanofi’s $9.5 billion acquisition of Blueprint Medicines, and Johnson & Johnson’s $14.6 billion acquisition of Intra-Cellular Therapies, as well as notable developments in litigation and enforcement by European and UK regulators. As discussed in this update, these outcomes can provide important guidance for life sciences companies as they structure their transactional and regulatory activity.

The second quarter of 2025 was marked by major transactions, high-stakes litigation, and shifting regulatory frameworks. In the United States, deals such as Salesforce/Informatica and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)/Juniper Networks highlight how enforcers are recalibrating their approach to vertical integration, remedies, and political influence, while the surge of acquihire transactions in artificial intelligence (AI) demonstrates how dealmaking is evolving to capture scarce talent outside traditional reportable transaction structures. At the same time, landmark litigation in the US against Google — spanning adtech, search, and app distribution — underscores the judiciary’s growing willingness to confront entrenched digital platforms with structural remedies. Across the Atlantic, the European Commission has intensified enforcement under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), launched its first labor market cartel case, and opened consultations to overhaul merger guidelines with a stronger focus on innovation and ecosystem effects. Together, these developments illustrate a rapidly shifting enforcement environment in which both US and EU authorities are testing new theories, new tools, and new remedies, creating a dynamic landscape for technology, AI, and digital-platform markets.

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