Insights: Clients

Mergers & Acquisitions

The transaction’s initial 30-day HSR waiting period is scheduled to expire on January 12. We expect that the transaction will clear without a second request. Industry participants (who are not involved in the deal) conveyed that IBM/Red Hat and Confluent compete in the Kafka-based cloud-managed enterprise data streaming market and the...

Mergers & Acquisitions

Abbott/Exact Sciences

The merger agreement does not specify a date by which the companies are obligated to file HSR, but we expect a filing will be made this month. We believe that this transaction will avoid a second request from the FTC. We have not uncovered any evidence of meaningful head-to-head competition between Abbott and Exact in colorectal cancer...

IEEPA Tariffs and the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) is scheduled to issue its first opinions of the year this Friday (1/9). This will represent the first opportunity for the Court to issue their opinion in Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, the case concerning the President's imposition of tariffs under IEEPA, though there is no specific indication the IEEPA decision will come...

Elections, Macro

House/Senate Outlook, 2026/2027 Policy Implications

Indicators for the midterm election cycle have been consistently negative for Republicans over the last two months, particularly results in the November NJ and VA elections, the special election in the TN-7 House district, and more modest than expected dynamics for Republicans in the re-districting process. The macro political environment has...

Skin Substitutes

CMS’s Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) are withdrawing the Local Coverage Determination (LCD) for “Skin Substitute Grafts/Cellular and Tissue-Based Products for the Treatment of Diabetic Foot Ulcers and Venous Leg Ulcers” scheduled to become effective on January 1, 2026.

ACOs (LEAD Model)

The CMS Innovation Center (CMMI) announced the Long-Term Enhanced ACO Design (LEAD) Model, the successor to the soon-to-conclude ACO REACH model.