RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT

We place great importance on research and development at Fresenius, where we develop products and therapies for severely and chronically ill patients. High quality is crucial for providing patients with optimal care, improving their quality of life, and thus increasing their life expectancy. As an integral part of our corporate strategy, research and development also serves to secure the Company’s economic development and success.

DIALYSIS

Research and development at Fresenius Medical Care is focused on products and therapies for dialysis and other extracorporeal blood therapies. Fresenius Medical Care benefits from its unique position as a vertically integrated company, covering both dialysis products and dialysis care. The experience we gain daily from treating around 174,000 patients provides important insights for the development of new products and therapies, and is therefore of enormous value. It also fosters the development of holistic therapies.

Hemodialysis

In 2007, the Body Composition Monitor (BCM) was introduced to the market. The BCM is a device that can be used to determine the dialysis patient’s body composition, i.e. body water, fat-free body mass and fat. Exact knowledge of this data, especially the percentage of body water, is important for assessing the patient’s condition and deciding on the therapy. In the treatment of dialysis patients it is equally crucial to prevent hyperhydration as well as dehydration. Hyperhydration burdens and damages the cardiovascular system, while dehydration frequently leads to complications during the dialysis treatment that further impair the patient’s already restricted quality of life. Studies of current practice all indicate that a sufficiently accurate knowledge of this important patient data is generally not provided. With the BCM, we have developed a suitable, easy-to-use and low-cost state-of-the-art measuring device. And even more important – for the first time the user is provided with a comprehensive, clinically validated evaluation program for the data obtained.

In 2007, much of our development work was again linked to the launch of the 5008 hemodialysis machine. We are continuing to monitor its reliability and performance in practice in the clinic and under different operating conditions internationally. The feedback from our own dialysis clinics and from clients is taken into account in the process of continuous product improvement.

With the development of the 5008, we have upgraded online hemodiafiltration (Online HDF) from an exclusive process for a few users into a standard feature included in the basic version of the machine. In online HDF the machine produces the required amount of sterile and pyrogen-free dialysis solution from standard bicarbonate dialysate, without changing bags of liquid. Our conceptual decision has proven to be correct. A growing number of clinical studies on the advantages of hemodiafiltration indicate that this application can lead to a reduction of more than 30 - 35% in the mortality rate for patients. Few other individual measures in kidney replacement therapy have had such a significant influence on patients’ rate of survival. Fresenius Medical Care, as one of the first providers of commercially available Online HDF devices, sees this as confirmation of its long-term innovation and product development policy.

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