Baxter Healthcare Corp

Baxter Healthcare Corp. in Glendale said it plans to invest $400 million to expand and upgrade its facilities to increase production capacity for biopharmaceuticals and vaccines. The company recently began construction on a new $100-million, plasma-processing facility located next to its Hyland Immuno facility in Los Angeles. Baxter develops and produces therapeutic proteins from plasma to treat hemophilia, immune deficiencies and other blood-related disorders. It is the principal U.S.

It took Baxter Healthcare Corp. less than two weeks for its heart to heal over the five salespeople who defected to another maker of heart-repair products. In a tersely worded statement on Feb. 12, the health-care giant's Irvine-based cardiovascular surgery division and the company it sued, Heartport Inc. of Redwood City, said they had resolved the matter "in the best interest of both companies." Officials of both companies refused to provide details of the settlement.

Testing has turned up possible irregularities in some samples of a blood thinner linked to several deaths and hundreds of life-threatening reactions, a spokeswoman for Baxter Healthcare Corp. said Thursday. The disclosure comes amid mounting questions about the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's oversight of drugs manufactured overseas.

The maker of a blood thinner suspected in four U.S. deaths and allergic reactions in 350 people said Tuesday that its investigation was focusing more closely on whether something went awry during the processing of ingredients in China. Baxter Healthcare Corp. spokeswoman Erin Gardiner said testing had detected irregularities in samples of the drug, heparin, that were processed in China from raw material extracted in China.

Dennis Quaid and his wife Kimberly reached a settlement with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for $750,000 over a medication error last year that nearly killed the couple's twin infants, according to papers filed Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Nurses at the hospital mistakenly gave twins Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace 1,000 times the recommended dose of the blood thinner heparin, leaving them vulnerable to uncontrolled bleeding and leaving them, for a time, in critical condition.

Actor Dennis Quaid and wife Kimberly sued a leading blood-thinner manufacturer Tuesday, saying the labeling and design of the product led to a massive overdose of their newborn twins last month at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The Quaids' babies, Thomas Boone and Zoe Grace, twice were given 1,000 times the intended dosage of heparin on Nov. 18 at the Los Angeles hospital. At 11:30 a.m. and again at 5:30 p.m.

Baxter Healthcare Corp., a unit of the world's largest maker of blood disease treatments, is in settlement talks with Bayer Corp. to resolve an industrial espionage case. Attorneys for the companies told U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco that they were close to settling Baxter's suit, which alleges that Gopal Dasari, a former Baxter scientist who joined Bayer in May, copied files on Baxter's leading products for hemophilia, cancer and kidney disease.

Baxter Healthcare Corp. isn't sending Valentines to five salespeople recently hired away by another maker of products used to mend broken hearts. On Jan. 30, the health-care giant's cardiovascular surgery division in Irvine sued the five individuals and the company that recruited them--Heartport Inc., of Redwood City--for allegedly conspiring to steal trade secrets for products to repair or replace human heart valves.