Alere

The company was founded in 1991 by Ron Zwanziger under the name SelfCare, which went public in 1996. The company changed its name from SelfCare to Inverness Medical Technology (IMT) in 2000. One year later, it sold its diabetes business to Johnson & Johnson, and split off a new company called Inverness Medical Innovations. That company subsequently expanded its business by acquiring many companies, including Unipath, Clondiag, Ionian Technologies, TwistDx, Wampole Laboratories, Ostex International, Binax, Biosite, HemoSense, Cholestech, Redwood Toxicology, Concateno, BBI Holdings, eScreen, Standard Diagnostics, and hhh Axis-Shield.

In 2007, Alere entered into a joint venture, named Swiss Precision Diagnostics, with Procter & Gamble for the sales and marketing of its consumer diagnostics products.

In 2009, Alere won two awards in the 16th Annual National Health Information program, which recognizes the U.S.’s best consumer health information programs and materials.

In 2010, the company changed its name to Alere and began trading under the ticker ALR in NYSE.

In 2013, the company completed the acquisition of Epocal, Inc.

In July 2014 Ron Zwanziger resigned as CEO and COO Namal Nawana took over as interim CEO.

In September 2014, Zwanziger offered to take the company private for $3.82 billion.

In October 2014, the board of directors voted and instated Namal Nawana as the permanent CEO of Alere, Inc.

Alere operated three business units focused on cardiometabolic, infectious disease, and toxicology testing. The company was a pioneer in manufacturing rapid point-of-care diagnostic tests and provided products to healthcare professionals and patients worldwide.

In 2004, the company launched the world's first digital pregnancy test under Clearblue® Digital Pregnancy Test.

In 2010, Alere launched the Alere CD4 analyser, the world's first to provide absolute CD4 results at the Point of Care, making the management of HIV patients easier and more effective.

October 2012, the company received a warning from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its inadequate response to FDA's earlier observations on its manufacturing process of the Triage products.