Fresenius Helios has developed a secure and highly effective process for purifying medical protective masks so they can be safely reused. It is being employed for FFP2- and FFP3-type masks, which help protect medical and care personnel who are treating COVID-19 patients. Going well beyond the safety standard set out by the Robert Koch Institute, Germany’s government agency responsible for disease control and prevention, the process allows the purified masks to be used by any staff member – not just the previous user. Starting immediately, Helios Germany’s hospitals can purify 8,000 masks daily using the process, which was developed with the support of Fresenius Vamed and Fresenius Medical Care. The company has chosen not to commercialize the process and is making complete information about it available online, free of charge.

To obtain and secure important data for research into SARS-CoV 2, Fresenius Helios has established a multi-center COVID-19 register. Since back in February a team of Helios experts, supported by the Brandenburg Medical School outside of Berlin, has been gathering pseudonymized data on patients treated for COVID-19 in Germany. The goal is to develop insights and knowledge for the battle against the new virus. First research findings from the project, which is scheduled to last a year and is financed by Helios, are now being readied for publication.

Fresenius Medical Care, the world’s leading provider of dialysis products and services, has released an advisory calling for clinical care principles on access to be upheld for patients with advanced chronic kidney disease if a surge in COVID-19 infections overwhelms the available supply of facilities, caregivers and ventilators.

The Global Medical Advisory on Apportioning Care outlines the company’s position on how care should be allotted during and after the pandemic and addresses the differing care standards being articulated by various healthcare systems, groups and governments. It stresses the company’s commitment to maintaining uninterrupted healthcare delivery for patients around the world who require renal replacement therapy during the pandemic.

The advisory recognizes that capacity issues may become overwhelming to healthcare systems during the pandemic. However, it calls on “all authorities to recognize the need to make critical equipment, supplies, facilities and care delivery available to patients with advanced kidney diseases that need lifesaving therapy at all times, including during this COVID-19 disease pandemic.”

Dr. Frank Maddux, Global Chief Medical Officer of Fresenius Medical Care and member of the company’s Management Board, said the company stands firmly behind the clinical principle that despite the strain on healthcare resources caused by the pandemic, patients with End Stage Kidney Disease requiring dialysis should be able to continue with their prescribed dialysis treatment frequency. Furthermore, dialysis access surgery or interventions needed by some patients are “not elective procedures and should be delivered in a timely manner” to prevent potential complications, he added.

The advisory asserts that patients needing renal replacement therapy during the pandemic should still be offered the appropriate treatment that has been agreed in consultation with their physicians. “These discussions may include mechanical ventilation, dialysis, continuous renal replacement therapies and any other extracorporeal support” advised by a patient’s care team, it states.

“People with advanced kidney disease come in varied degrees of health and functional status, but they all want to be productive and active members of their families and communities, and we are doing everything in our power to support their desire for individual choices on the level of care they receive,” said Dr. Maddux. “We want to avoid population-based decisions on care that may not be in the best interests of the individual person.”

Link to the Global Medical Advisory on Apportioning Care

• Production of critical drugs scaled up with priority supply for COVID 19 patients
• Commitment to price stability for essential drugs for COVID-19 patients during pandemic

Fresenius Kabi is responding to the significant increase in worldwide demand for essential drugs for the treatment of COVID-19 patients, especially medicines used for sedation such as Propofol and pain management drugs. The company is maximizing supply with all compatible manufacturing capacity now dedicated to these vital drugs. Fresenius Kabi has made significant, future-oriented investments in recent years into both automation and capacity in its manufacturing facilities; these are now enabling treatment for more patients worldwide.

Fresenius Kabi will continue to align its manufacturing capacities to the dynamically developing demand resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fresenius Kabi is dedicated to protecting its workforce in all aspects and has introduced increased safety measures for employees across the organization. These safeguards will also facilitate continued operations at its production sites. To ensure uninterrupted access to the company’s medicines, devices and technologies Fresenius Kabi is working closely with governments and public health authorities around the world.

Stephan Sturm, CEO of Fresenius, said: “The COVID-19 pandemic poses particular challenges for our society. As a healthcare company whose mission is to offer better and affordable medicine to ever more people, we have a special responsibility that we will live up to also during these testing times. Irrespective of demand beyond our ability to supply, we commit ourselves to keeping prices for essential drugs for COVID-19 patients stable during this pandemic. My special thanks go to our employees around the world. I am very grateful for their extraordinary commitment.”

Mats Henriksson, CEO of Fresenius Kabi, said: “Our purpose is to put lifesaving medicines and technologies in the hands of healthcare professionals and to find answers to the challenges they face. This purpose has never been more important than today. We do whatever is possible to further increase manufacturing output and the supply of urgently needed products. I am inspired by the dedication of our employees who are committed to maintaining the supply of our medicines to patients and their families.”

Fresenius Medical Care North America has announced a collaboration with DaVita Inc. and other dialysis providers in response to COVID-19, which aims to support the broader kidney care community in the United States by offering isolation capacity for dialysis patients who are or may be COVID-19 positive.

Dialysis patients represent one of the most at-risk populations, particularly in the current difficult and rapidly evolving situation. To stay alive, they must receive treatment multiple days a week for three to four hours at a time. This presents a unique challenge for patients and their care teams when social distancing is required to reduce the risk of community spread and infection.

In this unprecedented time, Fresenius Medical Care North America is cooperating with DaVita Inc., U.S. Renal Care, American Renal Associates, Satellite Healthcare and other dialysis organizations. Together they are creating a nationwide contingency plan with a goal of helping to maintain continuity of care for dialysis patients by creating isolation cohort capacity that can be accessed by other dialysis providers.

A critical aim of this collaboration is to keep dialysis patients out of the hospital whenever possible, freeing up limited hospital resources. The companies are focused on ensuring there are enough nurses, social workers, dietitians, care technicians and available space to treat all dialysis patients, including those who are or may be infected with COVID-19, in a way that does not unnecessarily expose the hundreds of thousands of other patients who entrust them with their care.

Dialysis organizations have designated capacity in selected clinics across their national networks to create isolation units and shifts, which will treat patients who are or may be COVID-19 positive separately. This collaboration will help safeguard caregivers, conserve personal protective equipment and other important supplies, and create an environment that provides excess capacity for providers that may be overwhelmed by larger COVID-19 clusters.

Fresenius Medical Care, the world’s leading provider of dialysis products and services, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared Novalung®, a heart and lung support system for the treatment of acute respiratory or cardiopulmonary failure. Novalung is the first extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) system to be cleared for more than six hours of use as extracorporeal life support. The company expects Novalung to be available within the U.S. mid-year 2020.

Patients in acute respiratory or cardiopulmonary failure often struggle to get oxygen into their bloodstream or expel carbon dioxide out of their bodies, resulting in dangerously low levels of oxygen. This acute low oxygen state can result from a wide range of conditions.

The Novalung ECMO system pumps and oxygenates a patient’s blood, reducing the stress on damaged heart and lungs. Novalung offers a portable therapy solution designed to improve clinical outcomes and accommodate various clinical care settings such as intensive care units, operating rooms, cardiac catheterization labs, and emergency departments.  

The use of Novalung as an ECMO device for critical care has several benefits, including minimizing the need for invasive ventilation, the ability to provide support after multi-organ injuries, and better survival outcomes for patients in cardiac arrest.

Fresenius Kabi, Bio-Techne and Wilson Wolf have formed a new joint venture to support researchers and biopharmaceutical companies in the field of cell and gene therapy. The joint venture is owned equally by the three partners and will focus on providing scalable manufacturing technologies and processes needed to develop and commercialize new cell and gene therapies. No financial terms were disclosed.

Fresenius Helios has started training experts in antibiotics management to combat the growing threat from multi-resistant bacteria. In the coming years, more than 600 doctors will be trained at the company’s 86 hospitals in Germany on the correct way to handle antibiotics. These doctors will raise awareness of the problem among colleagues and be available for consultations with them. In addition, Fresenius Helios is introducing a system under which each hospital will report on its antibiotics usage.

Fresenius Helios has awarded its inaugural Helios-Pro-Inno Prize for outstanding innovation and projects in patient care and hospital management. Three different projects at Helios Wuppertal, Helios Berlin-Buch and Helios Bad Saarow hospitals in Germany were honored: A color and lighting concept that demonstrably improved the well-being of intensive care patients and even reduced their need for certain medications; the appointment of a “Feel Good Manager” for resolving employees’ problems in the workplace, and an antibiotics reporting system developed in response to the growing threat from multi-resistant bacteria. A jury of eight members, from different occupational groups, chose the Helios-Pro-Inno Prize winners from more than 70 entries.

Fresenius Medical Care North America continues to improve clinical quality as measured by the U.S. government’s Five-Star Rating System. More than 94 percent of the company’s dialysis centers were rated three stars and above for clinical quality, with a total of 762 centers achieving the highest five star rating, up from 658 last year. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) assigns one to five stars to each dialysis center annually based on a series of measurements around clinical performance and patient outcomes.