Fresenius (company)

Fresenius SE & Co. KGaA

Type	Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien with Societas Europaea as partner with unlimited liability
Traded as	FWB: FRE
Industry	Health care
Founded	1912 (1912)
Headquarters	Bad Homburg, Germany
Key people	Stephan Sturm (CEO and chairman of the management board), Gerd Krick (Chairman of the supervisory board)
Products	Kidney dialysis, infusion pumps, drugs, hospitals, medical care
Revenue	€27.995 billion (2015)[1]
Operating income	€4.001 billion (2015)[1]
Profit	€1.436 billion (2015)[1]
Total assets	€43.170 billion (end 2015)[1]
Total equity	€18.131 billion (end 2015)[1]
Number of employees	223,704 (March 2016)[2]
Website	www.fresenius.com

Fresenius SE & Co. KGaA is a European health care company based in Bad Homburg, Germany. The Fresenius Group provides products and services for dialysis, hospitals as well as inpatient and outpatient medical care. In addition, the company focuses on hospital management as well as on engineering and services for medical centers and other health care facilities. The company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index.^[3]

Operations

The Fresenius Group is made up of four divisions:

• Fresenius Medical Care (a publicly traded company of which Fresenius owns 30.8%):^[4] focuses on patients with chronic kidney failure
• Fresenius Helios is Germany’s largest hospital operator
• Fresenius Kabi is a supplier of essential drugs, clinical nutrition products, medical devices
• Fresenius Vamed plans, develops and manages healthcare facilities.

Another arm of Fresenius Kabi is Fresenius Kabi Oncology Plc. It produces generics of intravenous oncology products such as Paclitaxel, Irinotecan, Oxaliplatin, Gemcitabine, Cytarabine, Carboplatin, Topotecan, Docetaxel and Epirubicin.

Fresenius owns the Helios Kliniken, which has more than 110 hospitals and more than 30,000 beds, treating over 4 million patients annually. The hospital operator is the biggest provider of inpatient and outpatient care in Germany.

In 2016 Fresenius bought the largest Spanish hospital group, the Grupo Hospitalario Quirónsalud for 5.76 Billion euros and merged it into the Helios Group, establishing the biggest hospital group of Europe.^[5]

The North American branch of Fresenius Medical Care is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts.

History

The company was founded by Eduard Fresenius (1874–1946) in 1912.

In 1946, Fresenius left the company to Else Kröner, his foster-daughter and protege, who was still in pharmacy school at the time. Else Kröner rescued the company from significant debts by laying off the majority of staff and restructuring the business. By Kröner's death in 1988, the company was an international leader.^[6] Kröner's well endowed the Else Kröner-Fresenius-Foundation, which funds medical research.

In March 2005, Fresenius Kabi AG, announced that it has closed the acquisition of Labesfal (Laboratório de Especialidades Farmacêuticas Almiro S.A.).^[7][8]

In September 2006, Helios Kliniken GmbH obtained antitrust approval from the German antitrust authorities for the acquisition of a majority stake of Humaine Kliniken.^[9]

HUMAINE operates six acute and post acute care hospitals in the fields of neurology, oncology and traumatology On July 16, 2007, the company completed its conversion from an Aktiengesellschaft (AG - German public limited company) to a Societas Europaea, the European Union-wide equivalent.^[10] The company changed its legal status once again on January 28, 2011, becoming a Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien (KGaA - German partnership limited by shares) with a Societas Europaea as a partner with unlimited liability (SE & Co. KGaA).^[11]

In August 2008 Fresenius Kabi acquired Dabur Pharma Ltd by acquiring 73.3% of the share capital. In September, Fresenius Kabi, a business segment of Fresenius SE, has completed the acquisition of APP Pharmaceuticals, Inc.^[12]

In October 2011, the company has agreed to acquire 51 percent of the share capital in Katholisches Klinikum Duisburg hospital.^[13] In the same month Helios Kliniken GmbH, a subsidiary of Fresenius, acquired 94.7% of the share capital in Damp Group.^[14]

In 2012 a paper was published raising concerns regarding the use of hydroxyethyl starch in sepsis.^[15] Fresenius Kabi, who makes the product, has warned legal action against the author, Anders Perner, as they disagree with the results.^[16] The academic community has raised concerns regarding this sort of behavior by a corporation.^[16]In July 2012, Fresenius Kabi signed a definitive agreement to acquire Fenwal Holdings, Inc., a leading based provider of transfusion technology products for blood collection, separation and processing.^[17]

Fresenius acquired 41 hospitals from its rival Rhoen-Klinikum for around $4.1 billion in September 2013.^[18][19]

In November 2014, the company announced that its Russian partners – Sistema JSFC and Zenitco Finance Management LLC – had agreed to terminate their joint venture agreement that had been established in April 2014. The termination was prompted by changing political and regulatory circumstances in the region, according to a statement from Fresenius.^[20]

In January 2016, Fresenius Kabi announced today that it would acquired Becton, Dickinson and Companys prescription drug business.^[21] In February, Fresenius Helios acquired the municipal hospital in Velbert located in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.^[22] In December, Fresenius Helios, received anti trust approval to acquire, IDC Salud Holding S.L.U. (Quirónsalud), Spain’s largest private hospital operator for €5.76 billion,^[23] with the transaction expected to close in January 2017.^[24]

In August 2017, the company announced its intention to acquire NxStage Medical, Inc., a US maker of in-home dialysis devices for $2 billion.^[25][26]

Structure

• Fresenius SE & Co. KGaA
  • Fresenius Medical Care
    • NxStage Medical, Inc.
  • Fresenius Helios
    • Helios Kliniken GmbH
      • Humaine Kliniken
      • IDC Salud Holding S.L.U. (Quirónsalud)
      • Damp Group
  • Fresenius Kabi AG
    • Labesfal SA
    • Fresenius Kabi Oncology Plc
    • Dabur Pharma Ltd
    • APP Pharmaceuticals, Inc
    • Fenwal Holdings, Inc.
  • Fresenius Vamed

Controversy

In 2015, the British branch of the Fresenius Kabi Group pleaded guilty to breaches of United Kingdom's Medicines Act 1968 and was fined £500,000 with costs by the Sheffield Crown Court for supplying faulty insulin syringes containing no insulin for manufacturers Calea UK to a local hospital, leading to the death of patient Neil Judge from diabetic ketoacidosis in 2010.^[27][28]

References

Further reading

• Kamp, Michael / Neumann, Florian: Fresenius – 100 Years. Munich: August Dreesbach Verlag, 2012. ISBN 978-3-940061-84-3.

External links

• Official website