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The Alcon Story |
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The Alcon Story -- one of almost unparalleled success and growth -- began in 1945 when two pharmacists pooled their meagre resources to open a small pharmacy in Fort Worth, Texas. Combining the first syllable of each man's last name, Robert D. Alexander and William C. Conner christened their fledgling enterprise the Alcon Prescription Laboratory. This modest pharmacy was the beginning of Alcon Laboratories -- today a $2 billion international pharmaceutical company specializing in the discovery, development, manufacture and marketing of ophthalmic products and instrumentation. The talents and vision of Bill Conner and Bob Alexander ultimately produced a success story unique in the annals of American entrepreneurship. After closing the pharmacy for the day, the pair often worked late into the night making sterile injectable vitamins. Rather than wait for business to come to them, the partners began calling on area physicians. They encouraged doctors to recommend their pharmacy while simultaneously selling their vitamin preparations and asking probing questions to uncover additional opportunities for their business. Through conversations with eye specialists, the men discovered that no pharmaceutical company was marketing ophthalmic products. Instead, patients were instructed to take their ophthalmic prescriptions to local pharmacists, who, with varying degrees of skill and accuracy, would then prepare them using distilled water and the drugs the doctors specified. Because the distilled water was often not sterile, contamination of ophthalmic solutions was not uncommon. As recently as the 1950s, blindness occasionally resulted from infections triggered by the products compounded to treat ocular conditions. Using equipment considered primitive by today's standards, Conner and Alexander began manufacturing sterile ophthalmic products. The partners incorporated their business in 1947 to raise capital and began promoting their products to ophthalmologists. Through the years, Alcon experienced slow but steady growth. By 1970, sales reached $25 million. Throughout the 1970s, Alcon's small but productive research effort developed products specifically formulated for ophthalmology. Even the plastic dropper bottle, now universally used for ocular preparations, was an Alcon innovation. |
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Nestlé recognizes that each country, and even each business enterprise, has its own culture and customer relationships which have evolved over many years. Consequently, at Alcon, as at most Nestlé companies, responsibility and authority for business strategy rests with the President and Chief Executive Officer and his staff. In the ensuing years, Alcon expanded its scope into the ophthalmic surgical marketplace through a strategy combining carefully targeted acquisitions with internal research and development. The contact lens care solution field provided continued growth opportunities, as did the expansion of business to established and emerging markets around the world. By the time Alcon reached its 50th anniversary in 1997, it had earned the position as the global leader in the ophthalmic marketplace.With the vision of its founders intact and the strength of Nestlé behind it, Alcon is uniquely positioned to continue its aggressive course of developing, producing and marketing the most advanced ophthalmic products and technologies. |
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