as nyse bax industry medical equipment founded 1931 headquarters deerfield illinois u.s. key people jos e. almeida chairman & ceo jay saccaro cfo products medical supplies to treat hemophilia kidney disease and provide intravenous therapy revenue us 16.3 b fy 2014 1 net income us 2.012 b fy 2014 1 total assets us 25.9 b fy 2014 1 total equity us 8.5 b fy 2014 1 number of employees 61 500 website https www.baxter.com baxter international inc. is an american health care company with headquarters in deerfield illinois . 2 the company primarily focuses on products to treat hemophilia kidney disease immune disorders and other chronic and acute medical conditions . the company had 2013 sales of 16.3 billion across two businesses bioscience and medical products . baxter s bioscience business produces recombinant and blood plasma proteins to treat hemophilia and other bleeding disorders ; plasma based therapies to treat immune deficiencies and other chronic and acute blood related conditions ; products for regenerative medicine ; and vaccines . baxter s medical products business produces intravenous solutions and other products used in the delivery of fluids and drugs to patients ; inhalation anesthetics ; contract manufacturing services ; and products to treat end stage renal disease or irreversible kidney failure including solutions and other products for peritoneal dialysis and hemodialysis . 1 contents 1 history 2 baxter boys 3 environmental activities 4 structure 4.1 corporate governance 5 h1n1 vaccine 6 philanthropy 7 controversies 7.1 1975 hemofil hepatitis b outbreak 7.2 1983 prison plasma collection 7.3 2001 althane disaster 7.4 2008 chinese heparin adulteration 7.5 2009 avian flu contamination 7.6 2009 drug cost inflation 7.7 2010 hepatitis c infections 7.8 2010 infusion pump recall 7.9 2008 2010 tax dodging 8 see also 9 references 10 external links history edit baxter international was founded in 1931 by donald baxter a medical doctor as a manufacturer and distributor of intravenous therapy solutions . baxter s interest was bought out in 1935 by ralph falk who established a research and development function . in 1939 the company developed a vacuum type collection container extending the shelf life of blood from hours to weeks . in 1954 the company expanded operations outside of the united states by opening an office in belgium . in 1956 baxter international introduced the first functioning artificial kidney and in 1971 became a member of the fortune 500 . in 1971 baxter built a major manufacturing plant in ashdod israel and as a result the company was placed on the arab league boycott list in the early 1980s . 3 throughout the 1980s and 1990s the company expanded to deliver a wider variety of products and services including vaccines a greater variety of blood products through acquisitions of various companies . sales and production facilities also expanded throughout the world . 4 in 1982 baxter acquired medcom inc. a new york based firm founded by richard fuisz and his brother that had large markets in the united states and saudi arabia . 5 6 7 baxter chief executive vernon loucks fired fuisz who then brought anti boycott charges against baxter to the u.s. commerce department office of anti boycott compliance oac . fuisz alleged that baxter had sold their profitable ashdod facility to teva pharmaceutical industries in 1988 8 while simultaneously negotiating the construction of a similar plant in syria in partnership with the syrian military in order to be removed from the arab league blacklist in 1989 . 3 9 10 in 1993 baxter pleaded guilty to a felony in relation to an anti boycott law in the united states . 8 11 in july 15 1985 american hospital supply corporation ceo karl d. bays and baxter s then ceo vernon r. loucks jr. signed an agreement that merged two of the united state s largest producers of medical supplies . 12 this was a one baxter approach in which the company provided 70 % to 80 % of what a hospital needed . 13 in 1991 baxter s home infusion subsidiary caremark was accused by the government of paying doctors to steer patients to its intravenous drug service 14 in 1992 caremark spun off from baxter international . 14 caremark was fined 160 million for the four year long federal mail fraud and kickback scheme in which the home infusion business unit made weekly payments to scores of doctors that averaged about 75 per patient for referring those patients to its services . some doctors earned as much as 80 000 a year from the kickbacks according to government documents . 14 in 1996 the company entered into a four way 640 million settlement with haemophiliacs 1999 in relation to blood clotting concentrates that were infected with hiv . 15 under pressure from shareholders due to poor performance and an unsuccessful merger loucks was forced to resign . 11 115 baxter acquired medical device firm baxa on november 10 2011 . 16 in 2011 hikma pharmaceuticals plc completed the acquisition of baxter healthcare corporation s us generic injectables business multi source injectables or msi . 17 18 in july 2013 eu antitrust regulators approved baxter s bid for sweden s gambro . 19 in march 2014 baxter announced plans to create two separate independent global healthcare companies one focused on developing and marketing bio pharmaceuticals and the other on medical products . the medical products company retained the name baxter international inc. and the bio pharmaceuticals company is named baxalta and spun off as a new public company that showed on trading boards as of july 1 2015 ce . 20 in july 2014 baxter announced that it was exiting the vaccines business divesting its commercial vaccine portfolio to pfizer with sale expected to close by the end of the year and exploring options for its vaccines r & d program including influenza . 21 in october 2015 jos e. almeida was named chairman and chief executive officer . 22 baxter boys edit during the tenure of vernon loucks who was baxter s ceo from 1980 to 1998 and chairman from 1987 to 1999 company sales more than quadrupled to 5.7 billion while its workforce rose from 30 000 to 42 000 . during that time loucks hired and groomed a number of staff who went on to become ceos elsewhere . baxter alumni groomed by loucks included terry mulligan of medassets lance piccolo at caremark mike mussallem of edwards lifesciences corp and ceos of boston scientific corp. and cardinal health . 13 environmental activities edit baxter international is recognized as a leading company in environmental performance and reporting having an explicit focus on environmental issues since 1976 ; actions included an environmental policy and manual a series of audits regular environmental conferences efforts to prevent and clean up site contamination and staff dedicated to environmental improvements . in 1997 a report produced by the company indicated that changes made to reduce environmental impacts generated savings that exceeded their cost producing a net profit . reporting was company wide with a variety of aggregation and reporting including on the company s internet and intranet sites . 23 the company was an early joiner in the green and greedy movement which aims to lessen the environmental impacts of manufacturing its products while saving the company money . 24 in 2009 the company announced it had reached a variety of its environmentally friendly goals and that it would continue to try to reduce waste emissions energy use and environmental incidents over the coming years . 25 structure edit baxter international by businessline 26 27 name focus 2013 sales in billions percentage total sales bioscience hemophilia therapy ; antibody therapy ; critical care therapy ; pulmonology therapy ; biosurgery products ; vaccines 6.4 43 % medical products iv solutions premixed drugs infusion pumps and administration sets ; parenteral nutrition products ; anesthesia ; drug formulation and pharma partnering ; peritoneal dialysis products ; hemodialysis products ; continuous renal replacement therapy 10.3 57 % the company had 2014 sales of 16.7 billion across two businesses bioscience 2013 sales 6.6 billion and medical products 8.7 billion . 1 sales in 2013 were 42 % in the united states 30 % in europe 16 % in asia pacific 12 % in latin america and canada . in 2011 baxter had approximately 61 500 employees . the breakdown of regional employees in 2013 was 36 % in the united states ; 34 % in europe ; 16 % in asia pacific ; 14 % in latin america and canada . in 2013 baxter international spent more than 1.2 billion on research and development . 28 corporate governance edit in 1953 william graham became the company s ceo . vernon loucks became president and ceo in 1980 . loucks was forced to resign by shareholders . 11 when shareholders forced loucks to resign 29 in january as baxter international inc. s vernon loucks relinquished his ceo duties after 18 years directors handed him a special stock option grant of 950 000 shares for the specific purposes of motivating him to implement a smooth transition of his responsibilities . if mr. loucks sells all the 400 000 shares he can exercise at year end and baxter s stock price remains at its current level he will make more than 4 million . the wall street april 29th 1999 loucks was succeeded by harry kraemer who was succeeded by robert parkinson who took the ceo position in 2004 . 4 h1n1 vaccine edit in june 2009 baxter international announced it expected to have the first commercial vaccine for the h1n1 swine flu influenza as early as july of the same year . the company has been one of several working with the world health organization and united states centers for disease control and prevention on the vaccine and uses a cell based rather than egg based technology that allows a shorter production time . 30 philanthropy edit in 2008 baxter launched science work expanding minds with real world science which supports teacher training and student development in healthcare and biotechnology in chicago public schools . 31 17 in 2013 the company was included in the civic 50 a list of the most community minded companies in america from the national conference on citizenship and points of light published by bloomberg . 32 in 2014 roughly 6 300 baxter employees volunteered in their communities through the baxter international foundation s dollars for doers program addressing local concerns such as healthcare the environment and education . 33 104 in 2014 baxter and the baxter international foundation gave over 50 million . 34 baxter was included for the 13th year in corporate responsibility magazine s 100 best corporate citizens list in 2014 for its social responsibility performance . 35 controversies edit 1975 hemofil hepatitis b outbreak edit in august 1975 baxter travenol withdrew a clotting factor product hemofil after the product was associated with an outbreak of hepatitis b. 36 1983 prison plasma collection edit baxter unbeknownst to the fda continued to use prison plasma in factor concentrate production until october 1983 despite having entered into an agreement with the fda 11 months earlier that they would no longer use us prison plasma which posed a high risk of virus transmission . 37 2001 althane disaster edit main article baxter althane disaster the baxter althane disaster in autumn 2001 was a series of 56 sudden deaths of renal failure patients in spain croatia italy germany taiwan colombia and the usa mainly nebraska and texas . all had received hospital treatment with althane hemodialysis equipment a product range manufactured by baxter international usa . 38 39 2008 chinese heparin adulteration edit main article 2008 chinese heparin adulteration in 2008 the quality of blood thinning products produced by baxter was brought into question when they were linked to 19 deaths in the united states . 40 upon inspection one of the raw ingredients used by baxter was found to be contaminated between 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