Abbott Pharmaceuticals

One of the medical companies at the forefront of the use of nanotechnology in the design and production of pharmaceutical products, Abbott Laboratories is a publicly listed company. Its headquarters at Abbott Park, is near north Chicago, Illinois, and it retains 72,000 employees. The company began when Dr. Wallace Calvin Abbott rented a small factory in 1888. The son of a farmer from Vermont, Abbott studied medicine at the University of Michigan. In 1888, he established a manufacturing business, while still practicing medicine.

Within his first few years in business, he discovered that the active (alkaloid) part of a medicinal plant could be made into small pills, which he termed dosimetric granules. The idea was first raised by the eminent Belgian surgeon, Adolphe Burggraeve (1806–1902), who had suggested that this was possible; however, he was never actually able to produce tablets for sale in any large quantity. Prior to Dr. Abbott's manufacturing system, measuring ingredients in pharmaceutical products was not at all exact. In 1900, the company became the Abbott Alkaloidal Company, and it grew tremendously during World War I when pharmaceuticals from Germany were not allowed into the United States. Following this, the company began to reap enormous profits.

By the time of Dr. Abbott's death in 1921, the company, Abbott Laboratories, was flourishing. Its core business remains in pharmaceuticals, but it has also become involved in nutritional products and medical devices, and has grown through acquisitions. Its most well-known product is Nembutal, a sedative sometimes called “truth serum.” In 1985, the company developed the first human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) blood screening test. Abbott acquired Knoll in 2001, the pharmaceutical division of the German chemical company BASF. Three years later, it sold its hospital products division to its employees, which became Hospira. In 2007, the company planned to sell its in vitro diagnostics and point-of-care diagnostics divisions to General Electric for $8 billion, but this deal fell through. In 2008, Abbott Laboratories had revenues of $29.5 billion. Much of its profits are reinvested into research and development. Abbott Laboratories is a major investor in pharmaceutical nanoscience. Their developments in nanotechnology allowed for close measurement of ingredients in pharmaceutical products, and allowed for previously unmeasurably small amounts of toxic materials to be used, providing new opportunities in the treatment of many medical conditions.

Abbott's involvement in nanoscience led to the methodology and ability to create new pharmaceutical products. One of the products that was developed was TriCor, Abbott's version of the drug fenofibrate, which [Page 2]is effective in reducing the level of cholesterol in patients with a high risk of cardiovascular disease. TriCor is a prescription medicine that combined with a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol has been found effective when other nondrug measures have not worked. Because of the complicated processes involved in the manufacture of TriCor, advances in nanotechnology enabled its manufacture, as the nanocrystal particles required are very small, sometimes smaller than 1,000 nanometers in diameter.

Subsequent to the start of the manufacture of TriCor, Abbott Laboratories has been involved in expanding its production into many other pharmaceutical products that require the use of nanotechnology to ensure that the amounts involved in manufacturing processes are exact. Nanotechnology has also allowed Abbott to change properties of known drugs to make them useful in expanded markets. In July 2009, Abbott announced a multiyear agreement with Oasmia Pharmaceutical to produce and market one of the first cancer medications for dogs. The chemotherapeutic agent, Paccal Vet (micellar paclitaxel) uses a nanopoarticle formulation of the active ingredient, paclitaxel, that allows it to be dissolved in water. This makes the drug practical for use in treating dogs, unlike previous formulations of paclitaxel (used for treating cancer in humans since 1993) that had to be dissolved in solvents, which caused serious adverse effects in dogs.

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