Animal Rights Became more Prevalent in the 21st Century

This case study explains the triggering event that leads to a product strategy change within Minnesota Biolabs (MB). This case study will also predict the success of Europe and Japan country general managers on adopting the new product strategy by presenting explanations of the given predictions. Lastly, changes about MB’s design in order to better promote the product strategy transfer across national borders will be discussed as well in this case study.

Sepsis infection is very common in hospitals across the United States and in other countries. Sepsis infection according to Spector (2013) is known as “an overwhelming infection of the blood stream resulting from toxin-producing bacteria (endotoxins)” (p. 96). This infection is passed to patients through injectables. An injectable could be a needle, IV drip and so forth. Due to the rise of sepsis infections in hospitals the National Health Regulatory Agencies began to seek ways to test the injectables before administering to patients or distributing them to health facilities. Conventionally, sepsis infections tests are performed on rabbits mostly and at times would lead to the death of that animal. Minnesota Biolabs would supply rabbits to these companies for testing. This company was headquartered in suburban Minnesota and served companies in over 20 countries. In Europe, the national units were MB-France, MB-Germany, and MB-United Kingdom. The fourth unit served Asian Markets and was called MB-Japan.

Trigger Events

As animal rights became more prevalent in the early years of the 21st century, MB had to seek other methods to test for sepsis infections in injectables. This triggered the executives to look for an alternative method. Belfast Telegraph’s (2017) publication found the following:

Not only is it unethical for mice, rabbits, cats, dogs, and other animals -- who feel pain and fear just like humans do -- to be locked inside cages and deliberately brain-damaged, drugged, cut open, or infected with diseases that cause extensive suffering, it's also bad science. (p.1)

Even though some animal experimentation is required by law, in this case, it was not. In fact, there are several countries that have banned testing on of consumer goods on animals. Therefore, the company began looking for alternative testing that didn't harm the lives of animals.

Due to the growth of Minnesota Biolabs over the years, they had come accustomed to purchasing other businesses and integrating their products into the company's contributions. An opportunity ascended in Rhode Island, a small company received funding from the government for a test called Sepsis Detection Test (SDT). Spector (2013) stated, “Instead of conducting tests in live rabbits, SDT used blood extraction from horseshoe crabs for the tests” (p. 96). This process was harmless and the crabs were returned to the ocean to regenerate the blood that was taken. This company was purchased by MB and horseshoe crab testing became the norm for the United States.

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