Kan. abortion clinic opens in slain doc's building

WICHITA, Kan. -- A new clinic offering abortions and other women's medical services saw its first patient Thursday in the Wichita building where a slain Kansas abortion provider had practiced.

The South Wind Women's Clinic opened nearly four years after Dr. George Tiller, one of the nation's few doctors performing late-term abortions, was gunned down in his church by an abortion opponent in May 2009.

The shuttered facility was bought by an abortion-rights group, Trust Women Foundation, which reopened it as a family and women's health center offering abortions and other health care services.

"We have been working a long time, really hard to get this open to provide services to women in Wichita," said Kerry Townsend Jacob, the group's spokeswoman.

Townsend Jacob cited privacy rights in declining to say whether the first patient, a Wichita woman, had an abortion or some other medical service. She also refused to say how many appointments have been scheduled so far.

Tiller was one of the few remaining physicians in the nation who did late-term abortions, but South Wind Women's Clinic does not plan to do abortions beyond the 14th week of pregnancy.

The Trust Women Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded in 2010 by Julie Burkhart, who worked with Tiller for seven years. The foundation bought the property from Tiller's wife in August.

Troy Newman, president of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, called the Wichita clinic's opening "symbolic" for abortion rights advocates.

"For me, we are winning across the board," Newman said, a reference to scores of laws seeking to restrict access to abortion passed by Republican-controlled legislatures during the last few years.

In Kansas, legislators on Thursday were preparing for final votes on a sweeping anti-abortion measure that would block tax breaks for abortion providers and outlaw abortions performed solely because of the baby's gender.

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Drugmaker Sanofi building new factory in Vietnam

French drugmaker Sanofi SA said Friday that it's building a new medicine factory in Vietnam to supply drugs to that country and others in the region.

The move is part of a fast-growing trend among major international pharmaceutical companies to put factories and research centers in emerging markets that the industry increasingly is targeting for growth.

Paris-based Sanofi said it plans to spend about $75 million to build the factory in Ho Chi Minh City.

The factory will make medicines and consumer health products for sale in Vietnam and for export to other southeast Asian countries. It's expected to be fully operational by the end of 2015.

Medicine sales growth is declining in Western countries _ long the industry's key markets _ as government and private insurance plans there push for discounted prices as part of an effort to rein in health care spending. That's because those countries are squeezed by weak economies, budget deficits and older, sicker populations needing more medical care.

Years ago, drugmakers mainly operated sales offices and distribution centers in emerging markets, countries including China, India, Russia, Turkey, Mexico and Brazil.

Now, governments and a rising middle class in such countries are increasing spending on health care, and most big drugmakers have set goals of producing 25 percent or more of their total sales from emerging markets.

Those companies have found that setting up factories and research centers that hire local workers and collaborate with local research institutions helps sway their governments to buy more medicines from Western drugmakers, rather than just favoring local drugmakers, whose products often are of inferior quality.

And because of lower labor, land and other costs in emerging markets, the big drugmakers can sell their products at much lower prices than what they charge in the West.

Sanofi, the maker of diabetes drug Lantus and injected anticlotting drug Lovenox, noted that the new Vietnam factory will join its network of 40 manufacturing plants in emerging markets.

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Follow Linda A. Johnson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LindaJ_onPharma

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