When Clinton Severson arrived as CEO
of Abaxis Inc. in 1996, the company’s
future looked bleak.
The company makes small, portable
blood analyzers for physicians and
veterinarians that require minimal
training and yield results in less than
12 minutes. Despite this remarkable
product, it was trying to do something
that hadn’t been done yet in marketing
these devices for use in physicians’
offices. In the veterinary realm, it was
also up against a much larger company that controlled 90 percent of the
market. If those weren’t big enough
hurdles to jump, Abaxis was also losing money and barely had enough
cash to stay afloat.
Despite all of this, Severson had
confidence in the product. He found
more investors in less traditional
investment firms and raised capital
from 1996 to 2002. With the cash he
needed, he transformed Abaxis from a
losing company to a force in health
care. He asked his manufacturing
director to reduce the cost of making
one component of the product from
$22 to $4, and he was told this was
impossible. He disagreed and found a
new director and management team
to make this and other improvements.
Today, that part costs $4.13 to make.
Under Severson’s leadership, Abaxis
has grown from margins of negative
50 percent to positive 65 percent and
now has 20 percent of the veterinary
market, proving that sometimes you
just can’t take no for an answer.
HOW TO REACH: Abaxis Inc., (510) 675-6500 or
www.abaxis.com
