Baxter International to Shut Down Denver Facility, 400 Employees Affected
April 7, 2016
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. – Medical device maker Baxter International, Inc. will shut down a Colorado facility over the next 12 months, impacting approximately 400 employees, the Denver Business Journal reported Wednesday.
Baxter did not specify its reasons for shutting down the Colorado facility. John O’Malley, a spokesman for the Deerfield, Ill.-based Baxter, told the Journal the company informed the employees of the impending closure. He said the move would “enable effective deployment of the company’s product portfolio in order to best meet the needs of patients," the Journal said. While many of the employees will be terminated, O’Malley said some will be allowed to work remotely, or be allowed to relocate to other facilities.
“Baxter is still evaluating where the manufacturing currently taking place (there) will transition to," he told the Journal.
The facility being shut down in Englewood was acquired by Baxter in 2011 when the Illinois company acquired Baxa Corp. for $380 million, the Journal said.
Baxter recently reported revenues of $9.9 billion for 2015.
Shares of Baxter stock hit a morning low of $41.81 after opening at $42.04 per share. Unlike many pharmaceutical stocks, since the beginning of 2016, shares of Baxter have been on a steady rise, climbing from $36.79 per share in January to a high of $42.22 per share on April 6. Shares of Baxter declined dramatically in late June 2015 following the spinoff of its pharmaceutical division, Baxalta . In July, Baxalta Incorporated, a pharmaceutical spinout of Baxter launched with hopes of fielding 20 new products by 2020. The company broke away from Baxter with a value of $6 billion and a robust portfolio that will help the company meet that 2020 goal. In March 2014, Baxter announced plans to spin out two separate, independent companies. One, Baxalta Incorporated, would focus on developing and marketing biopharmaceuticals. The other company, which retains the Baxter International name, will focus on medical products.
In October, Baxter announced it planned to slash about 1,400 non-manufacturing jobs worldwide, following a drop in 2015 revenue. The bulk of the layoffs were expected to take place outside of the United States, the company said at the time. Of those jobs, about 70 percent of the positions represent existing jobs, with the remainder representing open positions, the Chicago Tribune reported. Baxter expects the cuts to save the company approximately $130 million annually. The declining revenue came on the heels of the spinoff of Baxalta, Baxter’s former pharmaceutical division.
In March, Baxter reported enrollment of the first patient in its clinical trial for VIVIA, an investigational home hemodialysis (HD) system being developed by Baxter and DEKA Research & Development Corporation. The trial is designed to study more frequent, extended duration nocturnal home HD therapy (High Dose HD), which will be performed in dialysis facilities as well as the home setting. The study is assessing safety of the product and adequacy of dialysis.