Baxter, losing business opportunities, responds with corporate restructuring. (Baxter International Inc.)

Baxter International Inc., Deerfield, Ill., is losing millions of dollars in business from group purchasing organizations and is responding by a corporate restructuring designed to appease current and future customers.

A laboratory distribution contract that generated Baxter $32 million in 1992 was not renewed this year by Premier Health Alliance, Inc., Westchester, Ill. Instead, Premier awarded the contract in September to Curtin Matheson Scientific, Inc., Houston. Premier estimates the value of the new Curtin Matheson contract at $42 million.

Also in September, Premier cut Baxter's contract in half for surgeon's and exam gloves by making the new contract dual-source. When Baxter was Premier's sole-source glove supplier, it generated annual sales of $5 million. Under the newly awarded dual-source contract, Baxter's sales will be reduced to between $2 million and $3 million a year.

In another blow to Baxter, the Department of Veteran's Affairs, Washington, D.C., told Baxter that the VA may disqualify Baxter's bid on an intravenous solutions …