Baxter International was founded in 1831 by Donald Baxter, a medical doctor from Los Angeles. The company is headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois, and manufactures products with medicinal properties to treat various diseases like hemophilia, kidney disease, immune diseases, chronic diseases, and acute conditions.

The company sought to expand the business through several acquisitions throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The expansion began in 1982 with the acquisition of Medcom Incorporation, a medical firm founded by a physician, inventor, and entrepreneur, Richard Fuisz, along with his brother. Medcom had a large share of both the US and the Arab markets at that time. The next series of acquisitions came in the 2010s starting with Clair Lifesciences for $625 million in 2016, followed by Seprafirm from Sanofi, a French multinational pharmaceutical company for $350 million, recently in 2019.

Baxter Corporation has been in the pharmaceutical business for 88 years now and has successfully managed to tackle several controversies including the 1975 Hemofil hepatitis outbreak, the 1983 prison plasma collection, 1996 Japanese hemophilic HIV lawsuit, 2001 Althane disaster, and the 2008 Chinese heparin adulteration. The company was also involved in many recent incidents, including 2009 avian flu contamination and drug cost inflation, as well as 2010 hepatitis C infections, infusion pump recalls and avoidance of taxes.