Grifols Wins Approval to Buy Talecris

Date: July 11, 2011

Grifols SA has won U.S. antitrust approval to buy Talecris Biotherapeutics Holdings Corp. for $4 billion after agreeing to sell some assets. Under a consent agreement with the staff of the Federal Trade Commission, Grifols will sell two plasma collection centers, Talecris’ Koate blood-protein unit, and a manufacturing plant in Melville, N.Y. The deal reduces the number of major companies in the blood plasma industry, and gives Grifols, Europe’s largest maker of blood plasma products, a bigger share of the $7 billion U.S. market for blood-based infusions.