Baxter Healthcare to acquire Cook Pharmaceutical Solutions
Baxter Healthcare Corporation and the Cook Group recently announced the signing of a definitive agreement for Baxter to acquire the assets of Cook Pharmaceutical Solutions, a unit of Cook Group Incorporated. Upon closing, Cook Pharmaceutical Solutions will become part of Global Drug Delivery, a division of Baxter's Medication Delivery business, which specializes in packaging medications into a variety of systems and devices that make the drugs immediately ready for use in treating the patient.
Under the agreement, Baxter intends to offer positions to the approximately 300 Cook Pharmaceutical Solutions' employees, a highly skilled workforce that includes manufacturing, research and development and quality teams. This is subject to Baxter's standard hiring practices. Baxter will purchase the Cook property, which is comprised of six buildings on 11 acres at Cook's Curry Pike campus in Bloomington, Indiana. The property includes a newly expanded 120,000 sq. ft. state-of-the-art manufacturing facility.
Cook Pharmaceutical Solutions provides a complete line of pharmaceutical contract manufacturing services that includes a number of sterile product dosage forms such as solutions, suspensions and freeze-dried (lyophilized) powders in a variety of delivery systems including vials and pre-filled syringes. In addition, Cook Pharmaceutical Solutions offers clinical and commercial manufacturing and packaging, a full range of quality control analytical and microbiological services, as well as validation and assistance in regulatory submissions.
"The acquisition of Cook Pharmaceutical Solutions will broaden the range of delivery options Baxter is able to offer our pharmaceutical partners around the world," explains David Drohan, corporate vice president and president of Baxter's Medication Delivery business. "The addition of vial filling, lyophilization and pre-filled syringe capabilities to our existing line of pre-filled bag and reconstitution technologies will enhance our position as a full-line drug delivery service provider."
The sale of Cook Pharmaceutical Solutions represents another step in Cook Group's worldwide efforts to refocus on its core business of minimally invasive medical devices for interventional and therapeutic procedures, company officials reported. Proceeds from this sale will support increased research and development efforts aimed at bringing emerging Cook medical technologies to the global marketplace in a timely manner.
"Cook Group has always recognized the tremendous potential for growth in our contract pharmaceutical business," explained Phyllis McCullough, executive vice president of operations for Cook Group Incorporated. "Our decision to sell that portion of our business to Baxter will ensure that the pharmaceutical business we started reaches its fullest potential. This decision was made only after we were convinced that this was a good match with Cook and that Baxter was committed to establishing strong, long-term relationships with our employees and with the Bloomington business community."
Both companies anticipate that the transaction will close by September 2001, subject to regulatory approval.
With international headquarters in Bloomington, Ind., privately held COOK (www.cookgroup.com) is a leading designer, manufacturer and global distributor of minimally invasive medical device technology for diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Since its founding in 1963, COOK has been committed to product innovation, skilled hand-craftsmanship and unsurpassed customer satisfaction, earning the company global recognition among medical professionals. Cook Incorporated is acknowledged as an innovator in catheter technology, wire guides, introducer needles and sheaths, stents and stent-grafts, embolization coils, drainage catheters, tissue-engineered medical biomaterials, vena cava filters and other minimally invasive medical devices. More than 40 companies in the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia and Asia design, produce, manufacture and distribute COOK brand medical devices to physicians and other medical professionals around the world.
Baxter Healthcare Corporation is the principal U.S. operating subsidiary of Baxter International Inc. Baxter is a global medical products and services company that, through its subsidiaries, provides critical therapies for people with life-threatening conditions. Baxter's products and services in bioscience (biopharmaceuticals, vaccines, biosurgery and transfusion therapies), medication delivery and renal therapy are used by health-care providers and their patients in more than 100 countries. Baxter's Medication Delivery business offers a single source for medication delivery products and services, including drug delivery, intravenous solutions, sets, infusion pumps, parenteral nutrition products, anesthesia devices and pharmaceutical agents.
Source: Baxter Healthcare Corporation
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