Fresenius Medical Care, the world’s largest provider of dialysis products and services, today announced that the company has extended the end-date under the merger agreement with NxStage Medical, Inc. (“NxStage”) to account for the interruption of the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) review of the transaction during the recent U.S. government shutdown. The merger agreement’s end-date has been extended to August 6, 2019, or such earlier date on which there has been 60 consecutive days of full funding of the FTC’s operations.

Fresenius Medical Care has already signed a consent decree that was proposed by the Staff of the FTC and that remains subject to approval by the FTC Commissioners. Under the terms of the consent decree, Fresenius Medical Care would divest the NxStage bloodlines business to B. Braun Medical to address the comments from FTC Staff.