Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) is a diversified pharmaceuticals health care company. It has 68,000 employees and operates in 130 countries. The corporate headquarters are in Abbott Park, Illinois, located near North Chicago, Illinois.
Abbott Laboratories was founded by Chicago physician Wallace Calvin Abbott in 1888. In 2007, Abbott had over $25 billion in revenue.
In 1985, the company developed the first HIV blood screening test. The company's drug portfolio includes Humira, a drug for rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, Crohn's disease, moderate to severe chronic psoriasis and juvenile idiopathic arthritis; Norvir, a treatment for HIV; Depakote, an anticonvulsant drug; and Synthroid, a synthetic thyroid hormone. Abbott also has a broad range of medical devices, diagnostics and immunoassay products as well as nutritional products, including Ensure, a line of well known meal replacement shakes. Abbott’s in vitro diagnostics business is a world leader in immunoassays and blood screening. Abbott’s broad range of medical tests and diagnostic instrument systems are used worldwide by hospitals, laboratories, blood banks, and physician offices to diagnose and monitor diseases such as HIV, hepatitis, cancer, heart failure and metabolic disorders, as well as assess other important indicators of general health.
Abbott Point-of-Care manufactures diagnostic products for blood analysis to provide health care professionals critical diagnostics information accurately and immediately at the point of patient care. In addition to its offerings in the blood gas and chemistries segment, Abbott also provides point-of-care cardiac assays to the emergency room.
| Abbott Laboratories |
| |
| Type |
Public (NYSE: ABT) |
| Founded |
1888 |
| Headquarters |
Abbott Park, North Chicago, Illinois, USA |
| Key people |
Miles D. White, Chairman and CEO
|
| Products |
Pharmaceutical products, medical devices, diagnostic assays,nutritional products and animal health products |
| Revenue |
▲ $25.914 billion USD (2007) |
| Net income |
▲ $3.606 billion USD (2007) |
| Employees |
68,000 |
| Website |
www.abbott.com/ |
Organization
Abbott's core businesses focus on pharmaceuticals, medical devices and nutritional products, which have been supplemented through several notable acquisitions. It has also divested itself of less profitable businesses through sales and spinoffs.
In 2001, Abbott acquired Knoll, the pharmaceutical division of BASF.
In 2004, Abbott spun off its hospital products division into a new 14,000 employee company named Hospira, and acquired TheraSense, a diabetes care company, which it merged with its MediSense division to become Abbott Diabetes Care. In 2006, Abbott assisted Boston Scientific in its purchase of Guidant Corporation. As part of the agreement, Abbott purchased the vascular device division of Guidant.
In January 2007, Abbott Laboratories agreed to sell its in vitro diagnostics and Point-of-Care diagnostics divisions to General Electric for more than $8 billion. These units were slated to be integrated into the GE Healthcare business unit. The transaction was approved by the Boards of Directors of Abbott and GE and was targeted to close in the first half of 2007. However, on July 11th, 2007, Abbott announced that it had terminated its agreement with GE because both parties could not agree on terms of the deal. [1]
On September 8th, 2007, Abbott completed the sale of the UK manufacturing plant at Queenborough to Aesica Pharmaceuticals, a Private equity-owned UK manufacturer. No announcements have been made restricting the movement of staff to Abbott unlike other sell outs.
History
In 1888 at the age of 30, Dr. Wallace C. Abbott founded the Abbott Alkaloidal Company. At the time he was a practicing physician and owned a drug store. His innovation was the use of the active - or alkaloid - part of a medicinal plant that he formed into tiny pills which he called “dosimetric granules.” This was successful since it allowed more consisitent and effective dosages for patients.
Products
Some of the key products produced by Abbott Laboratories, circa 2006, include:
Pharmaceuticals
- Biaxin/Klacid (clarithromycin)
- Depacon (valproic acid)
- Depakote (valproate semisodium)
- Gengraf (cyclosporin)
- Gopten/Mavik (trandolapril)
- Humira (adalimumab)
- Isoptin (verapamil)
- Hytrin (terazosin)
- Kaletra (lopinavir/ritonavir)
- Meridia/Reductil (sibutramine)
- Norvir (ritonavir)
- Omnicef (cefdinir)
- Synthroid (levothyroxine)
- Tarka (trandolapril/verapamil)
- Tricor (fenofibrate)
- Ultane (sevoflurane)
- Niaspan (niacin)
- Azmacort (triamcinolone)
- Simcor (niacin/simvastatin)
- Advicor (niacin/lovastatin)
- Valcote
- Simdax (levosimendan) - not approved in US
Nutrition
- Similac-LF (Infant milk powder Lactose free)
- Ensure
- Pedia Sure
- Gain (infant formula milk)
Diagnostics
- FreeStyle Freedom Blood Glucose Monitor
- FreeStyle Flash Blood Glucose Monitor
- FreeStyle Lite Blood Glucose Monitor
- FreeStyle Navigator Continuous Blood Glucose Monitor
Automated analyzers
- Abbott Axsym
- Abbott Aeroset
- Abbott CELL-DYN (Complete blood count analyzer)
Abbott Diagnostics
Abbott manufactures fully automated random access automated analyzers utilized by medical technologists in medical laboratories. Abbott also provides client support for these instruments.
This article uses content from http://www.wikipedia.org
