Macro View Impels Baxter to Split in Two

Baxter Thursday announced strategic plans to split the company into two new independent, global healthcare businesses — one dedicated to developing innovative medical products and the other focused on biopharmaceuticals.

CEO Robert L. Parkinson, Jr., attributed the decision to “diverging business dynamics and the rapidly changing macro-environment.”

Parkinson will head the medtech venture, which will retain the Baxter International name. It will focus on a broad portfolio of intravenous solutions, drug delivery systems, and premixed and other injectable drugs, as well as inhalation anesthetics and hospital-based biosurgery products. The devices business will include dialysis product company Gambro AB, which Baxter acquired for $3.9 billion last year.

The biopharmaceuticals company will consist of a diverse portfolio of recombinant and plasma-based proteins to treat hemophilia and other bleeding disorders, as well as plasma-based therapies to treat immune deficiencies, alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency and other chronic and acute blood-related conditions. It will be helmed by Ludwig N. Hantson, currently president of Baxter’s BioScience unit. Baxter has not decided on a name for the new pharma company.

Both corporate headquarters will be based in northern Illinois. The transaction is expected to be complete by mid-2015. — Nick Otto