Lina Khan Blocks Cancer Cures

Pancreatic cancer is almost always fatal because it’s already in late stages by the time it’s caught. Imagine being able to diagnose it while it’s still at stage 1. That can now be done thanks to Grail, a company with a mission to detect cancer early, when it can still be cured.

But Grail’s potential to save lives is seemingly lost on Federal Trade Commission Chairman Lina Khan. She is making unceasing efforts, wrapped in antitrust language, to block Illumina’s acquisition of Grail, a company it spun off in 2016. Based on past applications of antitrust law, there’s no case against the combination. Given the numerous forms of cancer, and how defenseless we are against so many of them, it’s difficult to make the argument that the merger of Illumina and Grail would amount to a monopoly. How can a service (early cancer detection) that doesn’t yet exist amount to a monopoly?