Australian Clinical Labs has abandoned its $1.6 billion takeover bid for Healius following a fall in Healius’ share price and opposition from the consumer watchdog. 

If Australian Clinical Labs (ACL) had merged with Healius, it would have created a pathology super-group with almost 3000 collection centres, conducting tens of millions of pathology tests a year.

But the prospect of one pathology company operating more than half of all approved collection centres worried the ACCC. 

The watchdog announced on 15 December that it opposed the takeover because of concerns over a potential bulk-billing collapse, longer turnaround times and GP practices being lowballed on pathology rents.