EU fines US firm Illumina $475 million for jumping gun on buyout of cancer-screening company Grail

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union has slapped a $475 million fine on U.S. biotech giant Illumina for buying out cancer-screening company Grail without the approval of the 27-nation bloc’s antitrust watchdog. Illumina had announced an $7.1 billion acquisition of Grail in 2020 but the EU’s executive commission said it broke the bloc’s merger rules by moving ahead to complete the deal without its consent. The fine was announced Wednesday. The EU said last year that it was blocking the merger on competition grounds. Illumina is a major supplier of next-generation sequencing systems for genetic and genomic analysis, while Grail is a health company developing blood tests to try to catch cancer early.