Grifols Wins U.S. Antitrust Staff Approval to Buy Talecris

Grifols SA won tentative U.S. antitrust approval to buy Talecris Biotherapeutics Holdings Corp. for $4.09 billion after agreeing to sell some assets, reducing the number of major companies in the blood-plasma industry to three.

Grifols will sell two plasma collection centers, Talecris’s Koate blood-protein unit and a Melville, New York, plant under a consent agreement with the staff of the Federal Trade Commission, the companies said in a statement today. The accord is subject to approval by the five-member commission, they said. Grifols rose the most in five months in Madrid trading.