Producer
Baxter International Inc.
Dominant US producer of peritoneal dialysis solutions (Dianeal, Extraneal, Physioneal) and major HD consumables manufacturer. The North Cove, NC facility (flooded by Hurricane Helene, September 2024) produced ~60% of US IV fluids and a critical share of PD solution. Baxter's kidney care business was spun out as Vantive in 2024.
2
Inputs supplied
1
Goods downstream
2
Facilities
0
Stories
What they make
2 inputs Baxter International Inc. supplies
Click an input to see every good that depends on it, every country that produces it, and every other company in the supply chain.
Where it shows up
Goods downstream
Essential goods that depend on something Baxter International Inc. makes — pick one to see the full supply chain.
Where they make it
2 facilities
Aibonito Small Volume Parenteral Plant →
PRPuerto Rico · manufacturing
Baxter produces MINI-BAG and MINI-BAG Plus SVP container systems and amino acid products at this Puerto Rico site. Three Baxter PR plants were disrupted by Hurricane Maria in 2017. Ran on diesel generator for 10 weeks post-Maria.
Baxter Manufacturing North Cove, NC →
USmanufacturing
Flooded by Hurricane Helene (September 2024). Produced ~60% of US IV fluids and critical share of US peritoneal dialysis solution. FDA declared official shortage. Located in a flood plain in rural Catawba County, single-point-of-failure for US PD supply.
What else they do
Business segments
The company's full revenue map — where this supply-chain role fits within their broader business.
IV Solutions — Normal Saline, Lactated Ringer's, Dextrose
35%Peritoneal Dialysis Solutions (Now Vantive)
30%CRRT Systems (Critical Care / ICU)
20%Drug Delivery & Infusion Systems
15%
Intelligence
What's known
Sourced claims about this company's role in supply chains — chokepoints, concentration, incidents, dual-use connections.
Did you know2024
Baxter International — primarily known as a dialysis products and IV drug delivery company — is also the producer of approximately 60% of US IV fluid supply (normal saline, lactated Ringer's) from a single manufacturing facility in North Cove, North Carolina. IV fluids are the most fundamental hospital consumable: every surgery, every critically ill patient, every IV medication requires IV fluid as a delivery vehicle or resuscitation medium. On September 26, 2024, Hurricane Helene caused catastrophic flooding in western North Carolina, including the North Cove facility. The plant was flooded and had to suspend operations. Within days, US hospitals began reporting IV fluid shortages; the FDA authorized emergency imports from European and other international suppliers. Thousands of non-emergency surgeries were postponed nationally. The most basic medical supply — a 1-liter bag of saline that costs approximately $1 — caused a national healthcare crisis because a single Appalachian factory was the source for 60% of US supply.
US Food and Drug Administration ↗Capacity2024
The North Cove, North Carolina Baxter plant — which produces saline solution and other IV fluids — was built in the New River valley of Appalachian North Carolina precisely because of abundant clean water from the local watershed. The same geographic factor that made North Cove ideal for large-scale water-based pharmaceutical manufacturing (water quality, water access) made it vulnerable to flooding. Hurricane Helene's rainfall (record-setting 30+ inches in some parts of western NC) transformed the New River into a catastrophic flood. The Baxter plant was inundated. The FDA subsequently acknowledged that US IV fluid production had been allowed to concentrate geographically in a climate-vulnerable watershed without any resilience requirements. The crisis prompted bipartisan legislation and FDA rulemaking to require geographic diversification of critical drug manufacturing and stockpiling requirements for essential medicines.
Baxter International Inc. ↗Origin2023
Baxter International was founded in 1931 in Chicago, Illinois by Donald Baxter and others to commercialize the first large-volume intravenous solutions in sealed glass bottles — enabling safe IV therapy at scale rather than ad-hoc hospital pharmacy preparation. This made Baxter the foundational enabler of modern IV medicine. The company expanded from IV solutions into blood bank products (Factor VIII for hemophilia, plasma fractionation) and then into peritoneal dialysis in the 1970s — developing the continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) technique with Dr. Jack Moncrief and Robert Popovich, which enabled home dialysis. In 2024, Baxter executed a major restructuring, spinning out its kidney care division as Vantive Health — leaving Baxter as an IV/infusion company and making Vantive one of the world's largest standalone kidney care companies.
Baxter International Inc. ↗