Brussels, 26/10/2007 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 25 October, the European Commission cleared the proposed acquisition of Dade Behring of the US, by Siemens AG of Germany. The Commission concluded that the transaction would not significantly impede effective competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) or any substantial part of it.
Siemens is active in various manufacturing, technology and service sectors, including medical systems, and in particular in-vitro diagnostics (“IVD”). Dade Behring develops, manufactures and markets IVD systems for hospitals and medical laboratories.
Both companies are primarily active in the immunochemistry business, a sub-segment of IVD, which includes diagnostics for cancer, allergies and fertility. The planned merger would create one of the leading groups in both European and global markets for immunochemistry. However, the market investigation revealed that the horizontal overlaps between the activities of Siemens and Dade Behring would not allow them to increase prices for laboratories and consumers. Customers and competitors identified a large number of alternative immunochemistry test firms in a position to replace Siemens and Dade Behring in case of price increases. Strong competition from several reputable players with significant market shares would continue to characterise these markets, says the Commission in a press release. (O.L.)