Fresenius (company)

Fresenius SE & Co. KGaA
Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien with Societas Europaea as partner with unlimited liability
Traded as
Industry Health care
Founded 1912
Headquarters Bad Homburg, Germany
Key people
 Ulf M. Schneider (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]
€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
 201,924 (March 2014)[2]
Website www.fresenius.com

Fresenius SE & Co. KGaA is a European diversified 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

Fresenius consists of four business segments, Fresenius Medical Care (a publicly traded company of which Fresenius owns 30.8%), Fresenius Helios, Fresenius Kabi and Fresenius Vamed. With activities in about 100 countries, it has more than 200,000 employees.

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 100 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.

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.[4] Kröner's will endowed the Else Kröner-Fresenius-Foundation, which funds medical research.

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.[5] 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).[6]

In 2012 a paper was published raising concerns regarding the use of hydroxyethyl starch in sepsis.[7] Fresenius Kabi, who makes the product, has warned legal action against the author, Anders Perner, as they disagree with the results.[8] The academic community has raised concerns regarding this sort of behavior by a corporation.[8]

Fresenius acquired 41 hospitals from its rival Rhoen-Klinikum for around $4.1 billion in September 2013.[9][10]

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.[11]

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.[12][13]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Conference Call Full Year Results 2015" (PDF). Fresenius. 24 February 2016. Retrieved 11 March 2016.
  2. ↑ "Fresenius reports expected moderate Q1 2014, fully confirms FY 2014 outlook". Fresenius. 6 May 2014. Retrieved 6 May 2014.
  3. ↑ Frankfurt Stock Exchange
  4. ↑ "Fresenius". Fresenius. Retrieved 2016-02-07.
  5. ↑ Fresenius SE (2007-07-16). "Fresenius completes conversion into a European Company (SE)". Retrieved 2007-08-12.
  6. ↑ "Fresenius successfully completes share conversion and change of legal form - First trading day of Fresenius SE & Co. KGaA shares January 31, 2011". Fresenius. 28 January 2011. Retrieved 24 February 2011.
  7. ↑ Perner, A; Haase, N; Guttormsen, AB; Tenhunen, J; Klemenzson, G; Åneman, A; Madsen, KR; Møller, MH; Elkjær, JM; Poulsen, LM; Bendtsen, A; Winding, R; Steensen, M; Berezowicz, P; Søe-Jensen, P; Bestle, M; Strand, K; Wiis, J; White, JO; Thornberg, KJ; Quist, L; Nielsen, J; Andersen, LH; Holst, LB; Thormar, K; Kjældgaard, AL; Fabritius, ML; Mondrup, F; Pott, FC; Møller, TP; Winkel, P; Wetterslev, J; 6S Trial, Group; Scandinavian Critical Care Trials, Group (Jul 12, 2012). "Hydroxyethyl starch 130/0.42 versus Ringer's acetate in severe sepsis.". The New England Journal of Medicine 367 (2): 124–34. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1204242. PMID 22738085. Cite uses deprecated parameter |coauthors= (help)
  8. 1 2 Wojcik, Jeppe (July 24, 2012). "Pharma giant threatens Danish scientist". ScienceNordic. Retrieved 13 August 2012.
  9. ↑ "History - Fresenius".
  10. ↑ Jonathan Gould and Ludwig Burger (13 September 2013). "Rhoen-Klinikum to sell hospitals to Fresenius in $4 billion deal". Reuters.
  11. ↑ "Fresenius says Fresenius Kabi and Russian partners terminate JV" (Press release). Reuters. 6 November 2014.
  12. ↑ "Insulin-free syringe firms fined over diabetic death". BBC News. 9 July 2015.
  13. ↑ Ford, Steve (9 July 2015). "Firms fined for supplying hospital with faulty syringes". Nursing Times.

Further reading

External links

DAX companies of Germany
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