Publications

January 2001
Case

Merck Global Health Initiatives (B): Botswana

By: James E. Austin, Diana Barrett and James Weber

The case series focuses on Merck's drug donation program and then raises new issues facing management about what to do about HIV/AIDS in Africa given the company's development of a new therapy. Describes collaboration among many parties including the Gates Foundation,... View Details

Keywords: Health Disorders; Health Care and Treatment; Private Sector; Public Sector; Alliances; Problems and Challenges; Africa; Botswana

2001
Chapter

Publicly Funded Science and the Productivity of the Pharmaceutical Industry

By: Rebecca Henderson and Ian Cockburn

U.S. taxpayers funded $14.8 billion of health related research last year, four times the amount that was spent in 1970 in real terms. In this paper we evaluate the impact of these huge expenditures on the technological performance of the pharmaceutical industry. While... View Details

Keywords: Public Sector; Science-Based Business; Research and Development; Sovereign Finance; Pharmaceutical Industry

Read Now

December 2000 (Revised January 2001)
Background Note

Promise of Functional Foods, The

By: Ray A. Goldberg, Carin-Isabel Knoop and Laure Mougeot Stroock

This case presents a definition of functional foods or nutraceuticals (food or food ingredients that could provide a health benefit beyond the traditional nutrients they contain), a description of some of the major obstacles to their commercialization and... View Details

Keywords: Food; Private Sector; Public Sector; Health; Product Development; Production; Commercialization; Food and Beverage Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

Article

U.S. Economic Revolution: Mapping the Future of Healthcare

By: R. E. Herzlinger

Keywords: Economics; Health; Health Industry; United States

September 1999
Article

The Redesign of the Matching Market for American Physicians: Some Engineering Aspects of Economic Design

By: A. E. Roth and E. Peranson

Keywords: Design; Markets; Health; Engineering; Economics; United States

September 1993 (Revised July 1995)
Background Note

Public Policy and the Manager: Conceptual Framework

By: Willis M. Emmons III

Government intervention in markets may have significant effects--both positive and negative--on a firm's strategic options and its performance outcomes. Thus the ability to analyze the origins, implications, and dynamics of public policy is a critical managerial skill... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Management Skills; Government and Politics; Adoption; Business Strategy; Performance Evaluation; Economic Systems

May 1993
Case

Patient Transfusion Services Lab of Central Blood Bank

By: James L. Heskett

The vice president of the Lab and Clinical Services at Central Blood Bank is faced with the challenge of convincing a hospital to use economical shared patient transfusion testing services. View Details

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Quality; Service Operations; Mathematical Methods; Customer Satisfaction; Health Industry

April 1993 (Revised May 2009)
Case

Aravind Eye Hospital, Madurai, India: In Service for Sight, The

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

Starting as a modest 20-bed hospital, Aravind had grown into a 1,400-bed hospital complex by 1992. It had by then screened 3.65 million patients and performed 335,000 cataract surgeries, nearly 70% of them free of cost for the poorest of India's blind population.... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Social Marketing; Service Delivery; Service Operations; Welfare; Expansion; Health Industry; India

March 1993 (Revised June 1995)
Case

Singapore TradeNet: The Tale Continues

By: Lynda M. Applegate, John L. King and Boon-Siong Neo

Continues the story of Singapore Network Services Pte. Ltd. (SNS), which was created to initiate and manage the creation of value-added networks for trade and other aspects of commerce in the island nation of Singapore. SNS built on its TradeNet experience to develop... View Details

Keywords: Internet and the Web; Information Infrastructure; Internet and the Web; Profit Sharing; Partners and Partnerships; Trade; Business and Government Relations; Web Services Industry; Singapore

September 1991 (Revised August 1994)
Background Note

Note on Pharmaceutical Industry Regulation

By: Willis M. Emmons III

Traces the evolution of U.S. regulatory policy towards the pharmaceutical industry over the course of the twentieth century. A major theme is the steady shift away from a policy of 'let the buyer beware' to the creation of a complex and time-consuming review process,... View Details

Keywords: Safety; Industry Growth; Marketing; Research and Development; Health Testing and Trials; Economics; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States

September 1991 (Revised February 1993)
Case

Burroughs Wellcome and AZT (A)

By: Willis M. Emmons III

Burroughs Wellcome Co., developer of AZT, the first drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), finds itself under siege in September 1989 by AIDS activists and various segments of the U.S.... View Details

Keywords: Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Ethics; Business and Government Relations; Communication Strategy; Health Care and Treatment; Monopoly; Intellectual Property; Research and Development; Price; Pharmaceutical Industry; London

September 1985 (Revised July 2007)
Case

Population Services International: The Social Marketing Project in Bangladesh

By: V. Kasturi Rangan

Population Services International (PSI) was a not-for-profit agency founded to disseminate family planning information and to market birth control products, primarily in less developed countries seeking to curb their population explosions. In 1976, PSI concluded an... View Details

Keywords: Developing Countries and Economies; Health; Marketing Strategy; Social Marketing; Business and Government Relations; Nonprofit Organizations; Bangladesh

September 1983 (Revised July 1991)
Case

Orthoteks USA (A)

By: Joseph L. Badaracco Jr. and Richard G. Hamermesh

A series on implementing strategy as the head of the U.S. subsidiary of a successful Swiss medical products firm. Traces the actions of the CEO over a four year period and highlights his negotiations with the Swiss parent and the way functional components of the... View Details

Keywords: Business Subsidiaries; Trade; Health Care and Treatment; Leadership Style; Agreements and Arrangements; Strategy; Health Industry; Switzerland; United States

Article

Physician-Induced Demand for Medical Care

By: Jerry R. Green

This paper addresses the theoretical models designed to ascertain the existence of a variable level of physicians' activity in shifting the demand of their patients. Two basic approaches are followed: equilibrium models of the demand for health care, and disequilibrium... View Details

Keywords: Physicians; Economic Equilibrium; Monopolistic Competition; Economic Competition; Medical Care