The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Monday ordered DNA sequencing giant Illumina to divest Grail, a cancer diagnostics firm it purchased without regulatory approval, saying the $7.1 billion acquisition “would stifle competition and innovation in the U.S. market for life-saving cancer tests.”
Illumina purchased Grail in August 2021 without clearances from either the FTC or European regulators, who also appear to be preparing to tell Illumina to divest the cancer diagnostics firm.
That decision has been the crux of a proxy fight staged by the legendary Wall Street figure Carl Icahn, who has said that going forward with the deal without regulatory approvals was reckless and endangered Illumina’s core business of selling technology companies like Grail use to decode genetic information.
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