Abbott Laboratories Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Miles White speaks during the Biotechnology ... [+]
Abbott Laboratories chief executive Miles White is stepping down effective next year after 21 years at the helm of the diversified healthcare company.
The 64-year-old White last year named long-time Abbott executive Robert B. Ford, who is 46 years old, as the company’s president and chief operating officer in what was seen by many as a move to pick his own successor. Ford was the first official No. 2 executive and chief operating officer Abbott has had in more than a decade and will now become just the 13th CEO of Abbott in its 131-year history, the company said.
White, who will remain executive chairman of Abbott’s board, said in a statement that he will leave Abbott in a strong position, which was a goal of his when he decided to retire.
"One of the primary goals in my career has been to leave the company well positioned for the people who count on us,” White said. “Today, the company is the strongest it has been during my tenure, and I am confident that Robert will lead Abbott successfully into the future. He is highly respected, has helped us shape the company during the last several years and understands the forces driving change in healthcare."
Abbott is a much different company than when White became CEO in 1999. He took over from Duane Burnham, who was an insular finance executive who rarely did interviews or spoke publicly, often telling employees that the “whale that surfaces gets harpooned.”
In White, Abbott picked a CEO that almost immediately began to become more involved in Chicago civic affairs and began to wheel and deal to grow businesses via acquisition. White raised the company’s profile among investors and with the public on the national and global stage with Abbott investing in not only its businesses, but community and humanitarian projects.
It has paid off. Abbott’s market capitalization, which hovered near $75 billion when he took over has soared to $149 billion today. Abbott also spun off in 2013 its drug business into Abbvie, which is now valued at more than $125 billion and when the former Hospira hospital products business sold to Pfizer in 2015, it was purchased for $17 billion.
In 2017, Abbott closed on its $5.3 billion acquisition of medical test maker, Alere and continues to pay down debt accumulated from its $25 billion purchase of device maker St. Jude Medical, which closed in January 2017.
In his earlier years as CEO, White guided Abbott through various scrapes with regulators that included issues he inherited from the Burnham era. Most notably, Abbott battled with the Food and Drug Administration for years over quality control issues in its diagnostics division that White ran before he became CEO.
Abbott in 1999 agreed to pay the government $100 million in what at the time was the largest largest civil settlement by a medical-product maker regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, according to a Chicago Tribune report at that time.
But more costly than the fine itself was Abbott’s agreement to stop selling some diagnostic products until it corrected the various violations of federal quality standards. The inability to sell the diagnostic kits in question that were used by hospitals and large reference laboratories to test for a range of illnesses cost Abbott hundreds of millions of dollars in the time it took to eventually resolve the FDA issues.
But Abbott, its shareholders and board stuck with White as he transformed the company into a global market leader in several different areas and today sells some of the top selling diagnostics and medical devices.
Most recently, Abbott’s Freestyle Libre glucose monitoring system test used by people with diabetes became a blockbuster generating more than $1 billion in global sales even as new products enter the market. The product is considered unique in that it measures glucose continuously for two weeks.
"He embodies the values of the company in every respect and his impact on employees, shareholders, and most importantly, patients, will continue for years to come,” William Osborn, the lead director of Abbott’s board said of White. “He has positioned Abbott well for continued top-tier growth and innovation and we thank him for his countless contributions.”
