CSL Behring - History

History

CSL Behring is a subsidiary of CSL Limited (ASX: CSL), a specialty biopharmaceutical company with headquarters in Parkville, Australia. As part of a global alignment, the CSL Behring brand was established in 2007. Previously known as ZLB Behring, the company has a long history dating back to 1904.

CSL Behring traces its heritage back to Emil von Behring, the inventor of serum therapy or serology.

1901: Emil von Behring was the first recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

1904: Emil von Behring founded the Behringwerke in Marburg, Germany, for the purpose of experimental work on disease prevention and for the manufacture of sera and vaccines.

1913: Behringwerke expands to produce a gas gangrene antiserum and a cholera vaccine.

1916: CSL (then Commonwealth Serum Laboratories) was established in Australia with the goal of providing vaccines to the people of Australia and New Zealand.

1917: CSL produces 3 million doses of a mixed bacterial vacine to combat the 1919 influenza pandemic.

1930: CSL releases its first life-saving antivenom for tiger snake bites.

1940: Armour Pharmaceuticals (a predecessor company) in Kankakee, Illinois, becomes the largest supplier of human albumin (the most abundant protein in human blood plasma) in World War II.

1944: CSL begins producing penicillin on a large scale for the military and Australia is the first country to supply the drug to civilians at no charge.

1949: ZLB (Zentrallaboratorium Blutspendedienst, a predecessor company) is established in Bern, Switzerland, as a department of the Swiss Red Cross and holds its first donor blood sessions in Switzerland.

1954: Australian CSL officer Val Bazeley assists Jonas Salk with the production of the experimental polio vaccine used in the first clinical trials in the US. Bazeley returns to Australia to set up production of the Salk vaccine at CSL.

1966: Rh(D) immunoglobulin, produced from plasma, is introduced by CSL for haemolytic disease in newborns.

1981: Behringwerke introduces Haemate® human plasma coagulation factor VIII/von Willebrand factor complex for the treatment of patients with hemophilia A.

1991: CSL Limited is incorporated in Australia.

2000: ZLB Bioplasma (a predecessor company) is established, acquiring the plasma fractionation assets from SRK, a nonprofit organization affiliated with the Swiss Red Cross. ZLB becomes the fifth largest manufacturer of plasma products worldwide.

2001: Aventis Behring (a predecessor company) acquires 42 plasma centers, forming the world's largest plasma collection business.

2004: CSL Limited completes the acquisition of Aventis Behring, combining it with ZLB Bioplasma to create ZLB Behring (later CSL Behring).

2007: ZLB Behring becomes CSL Behring.

2009: ZLB Plasma changes its name to CSL Plasma to align with its parent company, CSL Behring, and opens the world's largest and most advanced plasma testing laboratories in Knoxville, Tennessee.