The Federal Trade Commission only gets notified when a merger/acquisition deal value is above $100-$110 million, so smaller deals nonetheless lead to a slow consolidation of the market. In conference remarks, FTC Chair Lina Khan outlined the ways in which the agency is trying to counter this phenomenon.

GoodRx failed to notify users that it sold their personal health information to Google, Facebook and other tech companies, the FTC claimed. The agency filed an order that prohibits GoodRx from sharing its users’ data with third parties for advertising purposes and requires the company to pay a $1.5 million penalty. GoodRx agreed to pay the settlement but did not admit to wrongdoing.

This is the third complaint the FTC filed against proposed hospital mergers so far this year.

To get approval for the deal, Medtronic agreed to sell an Intersect subsidiary to soothe the FTC’s concerns.

The agency reminded health apps and wearables companies that they must disclose any breach of users’ health information, even if they are not a HIPAA covered entity. Companies that fail to disclose a breach could face thousands of dollars per day in fines.

The FTC sued to block the merger between the two New Jersey-based health systems and won a preliminary injunction earlier this month. But the providers believe that the merger would not raise prices or stifle competition — like the FTC alleges it would — and have filed an appeal.

The Federal Trade Commission is no longer opposing the proposed merger between Einstein Healthcare Network and Jefferson Health. Nearly three years after it was first announced, the deal can now move forward uncontested and will result in an 18-hospital system.

Two UnitedHealthcare policies have raised several concerns among providers, including that they may display anti-competitive behavior and could block patient access to certain healthcare services. The American Hospital Association is asking the FTC and CMS to review and potentially block these policies.

Flo, a popular period-tracking app, reached a settlement with the FTC over allegations that it misled users about how their health information would be shared. As part of the settlement, the startup is required to conduct an independent review of its privacy practices.

Video conferencing company Zoom reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over claims that the company used end-to-end encryption in its video calls, when it reportedly used a lower level of security.

In a joint statement, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn and FTC Chairman Joseph Simons said they would look into anticompetitive practices like preventing biosimilar makers from obtaining product samples and misleading communications about biosimilars’ safety and efficacy.

The Federal Trade Commission and its U.K. counterpart concluded that Roche would not likely have an incentive to delay or discontinue development of Spark’s hemophilia A gene therapy. Roche markets a monoclonal antibody for the same disease.

Bristol-Myers Squibb said Celgene would sell the drug, Otezla (apremilast), to Amgen. The pharmaceutical company had said it would seek a divestment of the drug to satisfy competition concerns from the FTC.

Surescripts says that instead of using its own National Provider Identification (NPI) number, Pillpack fraudulently used NPIs that was associated with random healthcare providers.

CNBC cited unnamed sources who state that PillPack will be blocked from accessing data about a patient’s list of medications and prescription history, which it uses to accurately and safely send out medications to customers.

The effort by the nation’s largest insurer to become the nation’s largest employer of clinicians received FTC approval with an agreement to divest some of the company’s holdings in the Las Vegas area to address antitrust issues. 

As videogames have become mainstream and emerged from the dimly-lit arcade rooms of years past, gaming technology has found increasing application in medical training, pain management, rehab, and digital therapeutics.

According to the FTC, Simple Health Plans and its subsidiaries collected more than $100 million through deceptive marketing and sales practices that left many people stuck with thousands in unpaid medical costs. 

President Donald Trump has railed against the high price of prescription drugs, yet many Americans aren’t seeing a change in what they pay out-of-pocket. Here’s a look at the rhetoric thus far versus the results.

Consumers who used the Pact app made “pacts” to exercise a certain number of times per week or meet dietary goals, and agreed to be automatically charged an amount, ranging from $5 to $50 per missed activity if they did not complete their pacts.

The agreement bars Aura Labs and founder Ryan Archdeacon from claiming that the Instant Blood Pressure app is as accurate as a traditional blood pressure cuff.