Publications

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21 Feb 2018
Research & Ideas

When a Competitor Abandons the Market, Should You Advance or Retreat?

Terminations: Learning from Competitors’ R&D Failures, Krieger explores how pharmaceutical companies choose to react strategically when a competitor exits the market during the development stage. These... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Pharmaceutical; Pharmaceutical

April 2019 (Revised January 2025)
Case

Clear Link Technologies, LLC: Driving Sales with Peer Effects

By: Christopher Stanton, Richard Saouma and Olivia Hull

The importance of a good peer or coworker is widely discussed, but understanding the glue that makes coworkers valuable is less understood. This case sheds light on the importance of peers and the practices and environments that make a group greater than the sum of its... View Details

July 2023
Case

HealthVerity: Real World Data and Evidence

By: Satish Tadikonda

Andrew Kress (CEO and founder) and his team had built a promising marketplace business at HealthVerity serving its core market in healthcare, with a focus on pharmaceutical R&D and services. Thus far, HealthVerity’s products had been unique to the pharma and pharma... View Details

Keywords: Growth and Development Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Product Marketing

09 May 2024
Research & Ideas

Called Back to the Office? How You Benefit from Ideas You Didn't Know You Were Missing

knowledge sharing outside one’s core department. That is one implication of a new study about how knowledge is shared that focuses on academia, but may offer lessons for technology, pharmaceutical development, and other STEM industries.... View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

October 2019
Supplement

Impax Laboratories: Executing Accretive Transactions (A)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

Impax Laboratories was a technology-based pharmaceutical company that used a “dual platform” strategy to sell both generic and branded treatments. While Impax had grown organically for most of its history, it was beginning to use major acquisitions for growth. In the... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; Financial Statements; Mergers and Acquisitions; Capital Structure; Financial Strategy; Competition; Competitive Advantage; Corporate Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

October 2019
Case

Impax Laboratories: Executing Accretive Acquisitions (A)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher

Impax Laboratories was a technology-based pharmaceutical company that used a “dual platform” strategy to sell both generic and branded treatments. While Impax had grown organically for most of its history, it was beginning to use major acquisitions for growth. In the... View Details

Keywords: Financial Reporting; Financial Statements; Mergers and Acquisitions; Capital Structure; Competition; Competitive Advantage; Corporate Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

11 Apr 2024
In Practice

Why Progress on Immigration Might Soften Labor Pains

Almost one-third of Americans consider immigration the most important “problem” that the United States faces, according to a new Gallup poll. And yet, companies say they need far more workers than the current system allows. Some business... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne

April 2009
Case

GSK's Acquisition of Sirtris: Independence or Integration?

By: Toby E. Stuart and James Weber

An executive from pharmaceutical company GSK must choose how much to integrate a recently acquired biotechnology firm, Sirtris. Moncef Slaoui, GSK's global head of R&D, championed the acquisition of Sirtris to gain access to its potentially revolutionary science.... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Resource Allocation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Research and Development; Science-Based Business; Integration

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) inform medical practice, health care delivery, follow-on research, regulation, and health policy. Yet, many RCTs are inadequately randomized, blinded, and reported. To analyze scientists' and firms' incentives to meet clinical trial... View Details

October 2012
Case

GSK's Acquisition of Sirtris: Independence or Integration? (Abridged)

By: Toby Stuart and James Weber

An executive from pharmaceutical company GSK must choose how much to integrate a recently acquired biotechnology firm, Sirtris. Moncef Slaoui, GSK's global head of R&D, championed the acquisition of Sirtris to gain access to its potentially revolutionary science.... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Resource Allocation; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Research and Development; Science-Based Business; Integration

Research Summary

Multinational Enterprises and Corporate Responsibility

By: Nien-he Hsieh

Multinational enterprises, especially those operating in developing economies, face wide-ranging demands to help persons whose basic needs are unmet. Pharmaceutical companies, for example, are asked to provide access to life-saving therapies to patients in countries... View Details

July 2001 (Revised August 2005)
Case

Medicines Company, The

By: John T. Gourville

It is early 2001 and the Medicines Co. just received FDA approval to market Angiomax, a blood thinner to be used during angioplasties and heart procedures. It is intended to be a better alternative to Heparin, an 80-year-old drug that costs less then $10 per dose. The... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Change Management; Decision Choices and Conditions; Cost Management; Price; Product Marketing; Product Launch; Product Development; Risk and Uncertainty; Pharmaceutical Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

Henry McGee joined the HBS faculty in 2013 after retiring as President of HBO Home Entertainment, the digital and DVD program distribution division of Home Box Office, the pioneering premium television company. A member of the Entrepreneurial Management Unit,... View Details

Keywords: television; motion pictures; media; e-commerce industry; entertainment; broadcasting; distribution; health care; journalism; wholesale; arts; nonprofit industry

November 2017
Case

The 'Wonder Drug' That Killed Babies

By: Joshua Lev Krieger, Tom Nicholas and Matthew Preble

In the early 1960s, a popular drug taken by patients worldwide for a range of maladies was found to cause severe birth defects and other health problems in babies born to mothers who had taken it during a certain stage of fetal development. As many as 10,000 children... View Details

Keywords: Regulation; Business and Government Relations; Business and Community Relations; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Product Marketing; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business History; Health; Government Legislation; Corporate Accountability; Ethics; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Pharmaceutical Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States; United Kingdom; Australia; Germany; Europe

May 2023 (Revised June 2023)
Supplement

Novartis (C): Reimagining Medicine

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Claudio Feser, Karolin Frankenberger and David Redaschi

This case unfolds around the first-ever approved personalized cancer treatment, how Novartis wrapped it into a new business model design, and how Novartis scaled it. Novartis — one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world — is, among other ventures,... View Details

Keywords: Health Testing and Trials; Health Care and Treatment; Business Model; Problems and Challenges; Pharmaceutical Industry; Switzerland

April 2011 (Revised April 2015)
Case

Cipla 2011

By: Rohit Deshpande, Sandra J. Sucher and Laura Winig

Dr. Yusuf Hamied, head of the Indian pharma and generics manufacturing company Cipla, is weighing options for how to continue to support the global fight against HIV/AIDS while positioning his company for growth in a changing regulatory landscape. View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Leading Change; Leadership Style; Management Teams; Governance Compliance; Corporate Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry

May 2023 (Revised June 2023)
Supplement

Novartis (B): Reimagining Medicine

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, Claudio Feser, Karolin Frankenberger and David Redaschi

This case unfolds around the first-ever approved personalized cancer treatment, how Novartis wrapped it into a new business model design, and how Novartis scaled it. Novartis — one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world — is, among other ventures,... View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Business Model; Production; Business Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry