Talecris Biotherapeutics, once one of the largest life science firms in the Triangle, is no more since its assets were incorporated into Spain-based Grifols as part of a $4 billion merger.
But the investment Grifols made in acquiring Talecris two years ago, continues to pay dividends.
Shares in Grifols (Nasdaq: GRFS), which is one of the world’s largest maker of blood plasma-based products, surged 5 percent Thursday to $37.61 after a report predicted more price increases for plasma products, Bloomberg news reported.
Prices charged by the top three plasma-therapy makers have increased as much as 4 percent for the second year in a row in the U.S. as capacity use for the products is expected to reach a 10-year high of as much as 90 percent through 2015, Julien Dormois, a Paris-based analyst at Exane BNP Paribas, wrote in a report.
Dormois, who has an outperform recommendation on Barcelona-based Grifols, raised his stock-price estimate by 21 percent to more than $45.
Grifols operates the former Talecris plasma production plant in Johnston County.
CSL Plasma Inc., Baxter International Inc. and Grifols control almost 70 percent of the plasma market, and “we see strong upside” from accelerating industrywide growth, Dormois wrote Wednesday. “Pricing power is back.”
Grifols purchased Talecris to expand in the $7 billion U.S. market for blood-based infusions, used to treat rare and life-threatening conditions.
The U.S. accounted for 64 percent of Grifols’s revenue last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Grifols owns 150 plasma donation centers in the country, where the company collected 5.8 million liters of plasma in 2012, the Exane analyst said. The Talecris unit offers average prices of as much as $200 a month to blood donors, according to the division’s website.
Plasma is the clear, liquid portion of blood which contains a large number of proteins, particularly those responsible for blood clotting and protecting the body from infections.
