The health company Fresenius is still grappling with the consequences of the corona crisis. While the number of treatments in the Fresenius clinics rose again in the third quarter and the liquid pharmaceuticals business picked up, the dialysis subsidiary Fresenius Medical Care (FMC) is fighting the effects of the pandemic, in which many chronically ill kidney patients are cut, by cutting 5,000 jobs die. By concentrating on two global segments, FMC wants to abolish double structures and reduce annual costs by 500 million euros by 2025, as the group announced.
The Corona pandemic is troubling the Fresenius Group. Fear of infection prevented many people from visiting the clinic; medical interventions did not necessarily have to be postponed. As a result, fewer drugs from the liquid drug supplier Fresenius Kabi were used. At FMC, on the other hand, the pandemic led to excess mortality among kidney patients, which depressed the number of treatments in the dialysis centers. The two Dax companies are under pressure on the stock exchange, FMC shocked investors in the spring with a profit warning.
In the third quarter, at least at Fresenius, the upward trend continued. Sales rose by five percent to a good 9.3 billion and profit by two percent to 435 million euros. In the around 90 hospitals of Fresenius Helios in Germany there were more interventions again, while the clinics in Spain already recorded more treatments than before the pandemic. At the same time, the Kabi division, which sells infusions among other things, did good business in North America and in emerging countries. The service provider Vamed recorded orders at a record level.
Fresenius Medical Care, on the other hand, remains under great pressure. In the third quarter, the delta variant caused excess mortality among kidney patients to rise again, and the coronavirus killed thousands of dialysis patients. The costs of safety measures for patients and employees are also high. While sales rose by one percent to 4.4 billion euros, profits fell sharply by 22 percent.
FMC now wants to concentrate on two global pillars: on the one hand products for dialysis centers, home dialysis and intensive care medicine and on the other hand health services for people with chronic kidney disease, which should account for 80 percent of sales. As a result, FMC is saying goodbye to previous regional structures and is further bundling administration and central services, among other things. One-off investments of 450 to 500 million euros will be incurred for the program; FMC expects the first savings to be made by the end of 2023.