ABS Blog

Nearly every quarter, I present a brief review of ABS’ operations, finances, and important news with the entire company. The above title in a sense summarizes my next presentation. I often begin by discussing our mission statement and how what we are doing relates to it. This is followed by a brief update on our financials. Then, we look at our progress towards our current goals, and ideally, we check off a few key objectives. Finally, I go through a SWOT (strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis.

For the past seven years, the Broad Institute and UC Berkeley have contested the patent rights for the CRISPR Cas9 gene-editing technology for eukaryotic cells. It appears that this is now settled pending any appeals by UC Berkley. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has decided in favor of the Broad Institute. Please see: Broad Institute Wins CRISPR Patent Case | Technology Networks for more information on this topic. The USPTO decision has important ramifications for those using CRISPR for drug discovery and for those contracting with companies for CRISPR related services such as cell line engineering.

My previous post mentioned that we will soon launch a new Client Portal. The purpose of the Portal is to provide our clients with critical information about their requests and orders along with data related to their orders.

Information is the oxygen of an organization. Restrict it and productivity is starved. Share it effectively, and workflows are faster, more productive, and innovation can flourish. The free sharing of ideas lead to inclusion and innovation. Too often, organizations and individuals foster secrecy by either not trusting their employees or based upon misguided effort to control operations by limiting information access. This lack of trust is often fear based.

The critical work of discovering new therapies and new diagnostics is a long and resource intensive process. Too often important, but non-core tasks, delay the real work of discovery. ABS’ goal is to enable scientists and their companies to succeed more quickly by freeing their resources for mission critical activities.

Happy New Year to all our readers! We wish you good health and happiness in the coming year. At this time of year, many of us make plans and resolutions. Similarly, at ABS, we map out our year and beyond.

Our primary source of ideas for innovation is founded in the challenges and concerns of our clients and staff. ABS began thirty-one years ago based upon the observation that a large amount of a researcher’s time was often spent growing cells and sourcing and preparing tissues (both animal and human) prior to even beginning an actual experiment. These tasks delayed discovery and expended valuable resources. This knowledge led us to become the first company to address this problem by providing custom cell culture services, prepared membranes and cell extracts, and founding a global network of human biospecimen collection sites. Today, such outsourcing is commonplace. In 1990, it was highly innovative.

In a growing organization, employees should be the key drivers of change. They can also put the brakes on new innovations if they are not an integral part of the change process. It is the collaborative interactions between clients, staff, and management that make meaningful changes happen.

The previous post discussed the need for change in a changing world. That the world and business are rapidly evolving is obvious. The challenge is to decide, of those things that we can control, what should we change?

During difficult times the answer is simple: The status quo isn’t working. During good times, the argument for change is more questionable. ABS is growing at a high rate. So why are we discussing change? Why change when what we are doing is working? Why should any organization embrace change? During good or challenging times, change is difficult. In the first case, resources may already be strained and putting out fires may have become a full-time occupation. In the latter case, complacency, fear, inertia, and fallacy that the good times will just continue are obstacles to change and innovation. However, it is during the good times that change can lead to greater rewards than mere survival.