Baxter split won’t alter plans for Covington plant

Bioscience and medical products giant Baxter International said Thursday it plans to split into two companies, but the move is not expected to affect progress on the $1 billion manufacturing plant the company is building near Covington.

A spokeswoman for Deerfield, Ill.-based Baxter said construction of the plant “is continuing according to plan.”

Baxter plans to become two separate entities: Baxter International, which will specialize in medical products such as drug delivery systems, intravenous solutions; and an as-yet unnamed company that will focus on bio-pharmaceuticals, including treatments for burns, hemophilia and other blood disorders, and plasma therapies.

The new manufacturing plant, along I-20 near Covington, will fall under the bioscience spinoff. Baxter’s bioscience division reported $6 billion in sales in 2013. It will become a separate publicly traded corporation and will be named at a later date, Baxter officials said.

The transaction is expected to be completed by mid-2015.

“Until the launch of both companies in 2015, Baxter will continue to operate as one company,” Baxter spokeswoman Deborah Spak said in an emailed statement. “All of our business operations will continue as usual until the launch of the two companies.”

The Covington complex, expected to employ 1,500 people by 2018, was one of the state’s largest economic development recruitments of the past decade when it was announced in 2012. It netted Georgia a prominent bioscience name that state economic development leaders hope to use to help recruit other players in the industry.