FTC blesses merger of Mylan and Pfizer’s Upjohn division

By Brian Buntz | November 2, 2020

Mylan (NSDQ:MYL) and Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) recently announced that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission had signed off on the proposed merger of Mylan and Pfizer’s biopharmaceutical-focused Upjohn brand.

Upjohn also includes Pfizer’s Greenstone generic-drug unit. It also owns the rights to Lipitor and Xanax.

Pfizer plans to spin out Upjohn on Nov. 13. If all goes to plan, Upjohn will be rebranded Viatris on Nov. 16.

Pfizer stockholders would then own 57% of outstanding shares of Viatris common stock, with Mylan shareholders owning the remainder.

The two companies agreed to sell some assets to pave the way for the deal.

Pfizer announced the plan to fuse Upjohn and Mylan in 2019 to focus on its drug pipeline.

About The Author

Brian Buntz

The pharma and biotech editor of WTWH Media, Brian is a veteran journalist with more than 15 years of experience covering an array of life science topics, including clinical trials, drug discovery and development and medical devices. Before coming to WTWH, he served as content director focused on connected devices at Informa. In addition, Brian covered the medical device sector for 10 years at UBM. At Qmed, he overhauled the brand’s news coverage and helped to grow the site’s traffic volume dramatically. He had previously held managing editor roles on two of the company’s medical device technology publications. Connect with him on LinkedIn or email at [email protected].