4.7.2014   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 209/2

1.

On 26 June 2014, the Commission received a notification of a proposed concentration pursuant to Article 4 of Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 (1) by which the undertakings Allergopharma GmbH & Co. KG (‘Allergopharma’, Germany), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Merck KGaA (‘Merck’, Germany), Stallergenes S.A. (‘Stallergenes’, France), indirectly controlled by Ares Life Science L.P. (‘ARES’, Luxembourg), and Laboratorios LETI, S.L. Unipersonal (‘LETI’, Spain), a wholly-owned subsidiary of LETI Pharma, S.L. (‘LETI Pharma’, Spain) acquire within the meaning of Article 3(1)(b) of the Merger Regulation, joint control over NewCo GmbH (‘NewCo’, Germany), a newly created company, by way of purchase of shares.

2.

The business activities of the undertakings concerned are:

—   Allergopharma: active in the fields of allergen immunotherapy, allergy diagnostics and allergy prevention and has operations in 25 countries, with a main focus in Germany,

—   Stallergens: a global healthcare company specialised in the diagnosis and treatment of allergies which is present in 20 countries and distributes its products in 75 countries,

—   LETI: a biopharmaceutical company active in the fields of the treatment and diagnosis of allergies, pharmaceutical skincare, in-vitro diagnostics and vaccines. It has production sites in Madrid (Spain) and subsidiaries in Portugal and Germany,

—   NewCO: will develop mobile environmental exposure chambers for carrying out studies into new preparations for the treatment of allergies, will obtain all the validations and permits that are necessary for their operation and will then market the chambers.

3.

On preliminary examination, the Commission finds that the notified transaction could fall within the scope of the Merger Regulation. However, the final decision on this point is reserved. Pursuant to the Commission Notice on a simplified procedure for treatment of certain concentrations under the Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 (2) it should be noted that this case is a candidate for treatment under the procedure set out in the Notice.

4.

The Commission invites interested third parties to submit their possible observations on the proposed operation to the Commission.

Observations must reach the Commission not later than 10 days following the date of this publication. Observations can be sent to the Commission by fax (+32 22964301), by e-mail to COMP-MERGER-REGISTRY@ec.europa.eu or by post, under reference number M.7293 — Allergopharma/Stallergenes/Laboratorios LETI/JV, to the following address: