Antitrust scrutiny is ramping up competition now.

The pharmaceutical sector is preparing for more antitrust litigation after a pivot by US regulators to lawsuits that prioritize clarifying the law over successfully blocking deals.

Recent actions by the Federal Trade Commission under Chair Lina Khan that include a review of Pfizer Inc.‘s $43 billion takeover of Seagen Inc. have overturned settled practices for the agency, signaling a greater willingness to litigate in an attempt to set precedents that define anticompetitive conduct, according to academics and a former FTC director.

The FTC announced Thursday it would engage in data sharing with the Justice Department and the Department of Health and Human Services. The plan will help antitrust enforcers identify potentially anticompetitive acquisitions that may otherwise go under the radar, according to a senior administration official.

“You’re going to see a greater willingness to litigate, not based on whether they’re going to win or not, but based on the need to clarify law,” said David Balto, a lawyer and former FTC Assistant Director of Policy and Evaluation who now practices in Chevy Chase, Md.

Business groups are already taking countermeasures: Most recently, the US Chamber of Commerce and more than two dozen other trade associations urged Congress to stop one phase of the regulator’s pivot—an overhaul of the FTC and Justice Department’s merger and acquisition review process. The proposed changes to pre-merger notification rules reject the established Hart-Scott-Rodino Act standards and would generate more than $2 billion in new costs for businesses, they said.

Companies are right to be wary of the tone the current FTC has set, Balto said.

“This has been, for the last 30 years, simply a regulatory process,” he said. “But the commissioners don’t like that. They want something permanent to establish precedents that will govern conduct into the future.”