Abbot Laboratories and Organizational Alliances

Abbot Laboratories and Organizational Alliances

Abbott Laboratories and Organizational Alliances

Over the last several years, Abbott Labs has entered into a number of different partnerships to increase their ability to stay at the forefront for innovations that are occurring in medicine. However, a shift has happened during this time, as many problems are quickly emerging with these kinds of arrangements. A few of the most notable include: barriers to entering certain fields, limited control over proprietary compounds, varying expectations and a decrease in funding to some of the different programs. This is problematic, because if these issues continue into the future it could hurt the company's ability to deliver a wide variety of cutting edge drugs to the markets. As a result, a change needs to take place in their underlying strategy to deal with these issues. To fully understand what is occurring requires: examining solutions that can be utilized to address these underlying challenges. Once this occurs, it will provide specific insights about how the company can adapt to these shifts.

Due to the overall scope of the problems that have been identified; many of them are interconnected with each other. The most effective way to deal with them is to identify various tactics that can be utilized in conjunction with the consistent sources of funding. This will give Abbott Labs the ability to control the research. At the same time, they need a partner that will have the same kind of ideas about how these various compounds should be used in the future. The most logical approach that should be taken is to form a long-term alliance with foundations that are not tied to any kind of government funding. Instead, their focus is on giving researchers the ability to be able to have the freedom to conduct their projects without having to worry about these issues.

The best organization that can help the company to achieve these different goals is to form an alliance with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. This is a private foundation that was created by: the reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes. After his death, they became the heir to his entire estate and distribute over $14 billion every year to a variety of organizations. Their sole purpose is conducting medical and science research. These include providing funding as well as facilities to: individual scientists, universities and in some cases private corporations. If Abbott Labs can form some kind of partnership with them, this could help to address the issues that they are facing as far as the reduction in funding that they are receiving from their projects. ("Howard Hughes Medical Institute," 2011) (Drefius, 2006)

The company can then seek out other private foundations, where could they form similar alliances with. Once this takes place, they can create a host of different partnerships with these organizations that will address these challenges. This would directly deal with the problems that they are facing in the areas of: barriers to entering certain fields, limited control over proprietary compounds, varying expectations and a decrease in funding to some of the different programs. At the same time, they can keep the current collaborative projects going. The only difference is that the company would begin augmenting their current approach, with one that will help to ensure they have continuous access to the resources they need. This is the point that they will be able to deal with the underlying challenges they are facing. Over the course of time, this will ensure that Abbot Labs has the access to the tools along with funding they need, to ensure that they can continue with their research and development. ("Howard Hughes Medical Institute," 2011) (Drefius, 2006)