although Bax was trying to come up with a blood substitute, and Hextend is a plasma expander.. it is related news.
Baxter Ends Blood Substitute Effort
Associated Press Online - September 16, 1998 11:26
By CLIFF EDWARDS
AP Business Writer
CHICAGO (AP) - Baxter International formally pulled the plug on its HemAssist blood substitute, announcing it will
take a $75
million third-quarter charge to end testing and suffering a setback in the race to become the first to market artificial blood.
The company also announced several other charges against third quarter earnings due Oct. 22, resulting in a net $293
million taken
against profits.
Baxter's stock fell 6 1/4 cents to $60.75 in early trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The company had been
expected to
earn 61 cents a share in the third quarter.
The Deerfield, Ill.-based pharmaceutical giant's move to end HemAssist was not unexpected. In June, the company
suspended
European tests of HemAssist in trauma victims after early results found no statistical benefits.
And two months earlier, Baxter suspended testing in U.S. emergency rooms after more patients who used HemAssist
died than
did those in the control group. The company found that 46.2 percent of the people given HemAssist died, more than the
projected
42.6 percent mortality rate and well above the 17.4 percent in the control group.
"While we're disappointed, delays are sometimes part of the process of developing breakthrough medical therapies such
as
oxygen-carrying therapeutics," Baxter president Harry Jansen Kraemer Jr. said.
The push to find a blood substitute has been intense because artificial blood could ease the effects of whole-blood
shortages, lasts
longer than conventional blood, eliminates the time-consuming need to match blood types and wipes out the risk of
contamination
with such viruses as HIV and hepatitis.
The market would represent an instant billion-dollar potential because a blood substitute could be used on battlefields and
at
accidents, as well as in poor countries that have weak blood bank networks. Also, members of some religious groups
refuse to
accept transfusions of human blood.
Northfield Laboratories Inc., Biopure Corp. and Alliance Pharmaceutical Corp. also are working to develop a viable
blood
substitute.
Baxter in a statement said it will retool the huge Neuchatel, Switzerland, plant that was designed to manufacture
HemAssist. The
plant now will produce other biopharmaceutical products. About 100 jobs worldwide will be lost as the company ends
HemAssist
testing, Baxter spokeswoman Mary Thomas aid.
The company now will focus on genetic engineering to produce new forms of hemoglobin molecules, a field already
being pursued
by its competitors. HemAssist was derived from human hemoglobin.
Separately, Baxter said it also will take a net $178 million charge in the third quarter to set aside money for lawsuits over
hemophiliac and intravenous blood therapies and breast implants.
Baxter was among a half-dozen companies involved in lawsuits stemming from concerns that silicone implants have been
linked
with a range of health problems, such as silicone leakage which may cause autoimmune diseases and other health
problems. The
company never manufactured breast implants, but assumed the liability after its 1985 merger with American Hospital
Supply
Corp., which owned now-defunct implant maker Heyer-Schulte.
The company also plans to take a $40 million third-quarter charge to write down investments and dissolve joint ventures.
|
