Baxter Renews Gambro Takeover Venture

Baxter International (Deerfield, IL, USA) is seeking to boost its kidney dialysis business by reviving a long-held desire to take over Gambro (Stockholm, Sweden) for about USD 4 billion.

Baxter is a company that is involved in medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and biotechnology products, focusing on areas that include hemophilia, immune disorders, and infectious diseases. Among other fields it also specializes in home-based peritoneal dialysis, and the acquisition, an ambition of Baxter’s for several years, is seen as move designed to expand its influence in hospital-based care, which is largely based on hemodialysis; Gambro is one of the largest makers worldwide of hemodialysis equipment. In July 2012, Baxter announced that it would discontinue the manufacture of its own line of hemodialysis instruments.

Concomitant with that announcement, Baxter Healthcare, a subsidiary of Baxter International, entered into an agreement with Gambro to distribute and promote Gambro's hemodialysis instruments worldwide. According to the agreement, Baxter has exclusive distribution rights for Gambro instruments throughout most of Latin America, and a nonexclusive distribution and promotion arrangement in the United States and the rest of the world, excluding Japan where Baxter does not participate in the hemodialysis market.

“After considering our strategic alternatives, we are pleased to announce a distribution and promotion agreement with Gambro, a global leader in hemodialysis instrumentation,” said Bruce McGillivray, president of Baxter's renal business, during the July announcement of the distribution agreement. “This agreement will allow us to further build on our strong home therapy expertise, leveraging our global leadership position in peritoneal dialysis, while we continue meeting the in-center needs of our customers.”

Gambro, founded in 1964, has about 7,500 employees and roughly USD 1.6 billion in annual sales. Private-equity firms EQT partners (Stockholm, Sweden) and Investor (Stockholm, Sweden), which is connected to the Wallenberg family, bought the company for USD 4.7 billion more than six years ago. The lower price tag currently discussed is the result of Gambro selling Caridian BCT to Terumo (Tokyo, Japan) for USD 2.6 billion and the selling of another business that operated dialysis clinics.

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