Baxter's North Carolina site to restart IV fluid production

As Baxter International's manufacturing site in Marion, N.C., recovers from Hurricane Helene-related flooding, the drugmaker said Oct. 24 it expects intravenous product from the facility to enter the distribution channel in mid- to late November. 

This timeline is ahead of Baxter's original estimates.

"We are encouraged to report that, barring any unanticipated developments, Baxter anticipates restarting the highest-throughput IV solutions manufacturing line within the next week," the company said, adding that it plans to return to pre-Hurricane levels by the end of the year. 

Four other updates:

1. All employees of the North Cove facility, more than 2,500 total, are accounted for and will return to work this week, working alongside remediation contractors.

2. A temporary bridge at the plant has transported more than 720 truckloads of finished product to customers and a second bridge is under construction. Baxter expects the second temporary bridge to be operational in early November. 

3. Nine manufacturing plants outside the U.S. have been authorized to import product, including Baxter facilities in Thailand and Singapore. Other plants importing product are in Canada, Ireland, the U.K., Mexico, Spain and China.

4. Baxter is partnering with healthcare professionals to limit the number of new peritoneal patient starts to pediatric cases and medically necessary patient exceptions.

"We expect to be in a position to accept new patients on a limited basis beginning in the next few weeks," the company said. "We will be providing training and education materials in the first part of November so that providers can continue preparing new patients to start PD with the imported products. The volume of new patients should continue to increase as we move closer to the end of the year."

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