Thermo Fisher

Life Technologies |

Thermo Fisher formally Life Technologies |

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Elizabete De Lima |

7/6/2014 |

Firm and Industry Characteristics and History

Life Technologies was founded back in 1983 with a merger of Bethesda Research Laboratories and GIBCO Corporation. Then in 2000 another biotechnology company named Invitrogen, bought out Life Technologies. Invitrogen then purchased another biotechnology company named Applied Biosystems Inc. Thermo Fisher then purchased Life Technologies in 2014. Thermo Fisher itself has over 50,000 employees from 3 different merges. So in total, Life Technologies has been part of over 5 mergers within the past 30 years. With 5 different corporations merging into one it may be of no surprise that morale was low, as well as not knowing which culture was to be the next one to follow. Yet it is surprising that there has not been any ethical issues (cases) brought up within Life Technologies.

The biotechnology industry is highly aware of its ethical stance. Within the commercial biotechnology industry, corporations need to address their product safety, corporate social responsibility as well as corporate governance (MacDonald, 2004). When dealing within a scientific field, a product needs to be safe for human consumption etc. It is difficult within this field to determine what is “safe”. Regarding corporate social responsibility, there will need to be a balance between shareholders of the corporation and the safety of the consumers. Finally, with corporate governance, there needs to be procedures and code of conduct in place so that both the corporation, the board of directors and shareholders are all on the same page. All are aware of the Enron demise, yet many are not aware of a similar event within the biotechnology field which was ImClone.

Note: Since Life Technologies has been purchased by Thermo Fisher, all documents here on out are on Thermo Fisher and not Life Technologies. All past on Life Technologies have been...