Fresenius Kabi USA acquires U.S. Pharmaceutical Plant and Ready-to-Administer Drugs from BD
Saturday, January 09, 2016
Fresenius Kabi USA acquired a Wilson pharmaceutical manufacturing plant and its 100 employees from Becton, Dickinson and Company. The acquisition is part of a larger deal in which Fresenius Kabi acquired the BD Rx business.
Fresenius Kabi executives say they plan to invest in the facility, though did not give specific dollar or headcount projections.
Financials for the acquisition were not released. Based in Bad Homburg, Germany, Fresenius Kabi is approaching $2 billion in U.S. sales. In addition to the 100 Wilson employees, Fresenius Kabi employs 2,500 in the United States and 30,000 worldwide. The Fresenius name is better known for its dialysis business run under the business unit Fresenius Medical Care. Both divisions are owned by the same parent company. All Fresenius companies worldwide employ 200,000 people.
Fresenius Kabi manufactures sterile injectable drugs. Until this acquisition, it could manufacture only vials, which then require a dosing physician to pull out the proper amount for a given patient, using a syringe to draw the drug out of the vial. This acquisition gives the company the capability to manufacture pre-filled syringes, which are designed to help improve patient care and safety by decreasing the number of steps in the traditional vial and syringe injection sequence, reducing the potential risk of medication error.
“Ready-to-administer, pre-filled syringes are a growing segment in health care due to increased focus on medication safety and labor-saving efficiency,” said John Ducker, president and CEO of Fresenius Kabi USA. “They are a natural complement to our portfolio, enabling us to offer customers more choices and a broader range of specialty injectable medicines in vials as well as ready-to-administer presentations.”
In addition to the acquisition, Fresenius Kabi and BD signed a 10-year supply and distribution agreement under which Fresenius Kabi will supply BD with a portfolio of intravenous products.
In 2014, Fresenius Kabi sold a Raleigh manufacturing facility to Denmark-based Xellia Pharmaceuticals. That facility produced injectable drugs in vials – not pre-filled syringes – and the proximity of the two manufacturing facilities is coincidental.
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