Early Poultry Vaccine Company Development: the Era of Entrepreneurs

Early events leading to the establishment of various branches of the U.S. poultry industry and the animal health industry in the United States are reviewed. Entrepreneurs see needs in a developing market and take action to meet these needs. Their skills are suited to organize people and processes to supply these needs. As the early poultry industry consolidated, this was followed by technical education as a marketing tool to expand access to the customer base. Focus will be on two entrepreneurial individuals not well covered by prior history articles, namely Hiram Lasher and Kenneth Eskelund. A discussion of how industries pass from an entrepreneurial phase to a corporate phase will follow, thus explaining the corporate- and biotechnology-oriented vaccine companies we see today.