Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(223)
- Faculty Publications (100)
- December 2009 (Revised April 2012)
- Case
Neoprene
By: Tom Nicholas and Felipe Tamega Fernandes
In 1931, during one of the worst economic crises in U.S. history, Du Pont announced the discovery of an innovative rubber synthetic product—neoprene. Yet at the time of the announcement, Du Pont did not have any neoprene to sell. Manufacturing facilities were still... View Details
- November 2009 (Revised December 2009)
- Case
GTC Biotherapeutics: Developing Medicines in the Milk of Goats
By: Ray A. Goldberg and Sarah Morton
GTC is the first company in the animal world to receive FDA approval of a transgenic pharmaceutical. What are the implications for other firms in plants and animals and their opportunities to produce new medicines in an economical and safe fashion? View Details
- February 2009
- Teaching Note
Syndexa and Technology Transfer at Harvard University (TN)
Teaching Note for [808073]. View Details
- December 2008 (Revised January 2011)
- Case
Arcadia Biosciences: Seeds of Change
By: Arthur A. Daemmrich, Forest L. Reinhardt and Mary Louise Shelman
Arcadia Biosciences is an entrepreneurial California agricultural biotech company seeking to earn carbon credits by modifying commodity crops for use in China and India. Eric Rey, Arcadia's CEO, faced a strategic inflection point in early September 2008. The company... View Details
- May 2008 (Revised May 2008)
- Case
Symyx Technologies, Inc.
By: H. Kent Bowen, Courtney Purrington and Thomas D. Perry
Symyx is a science-based company spun out of Berkeley. Its unique materials technology has been exploited for 10 years, but the company needs a new business model. The company concept required the invention of hardware and software to do high throughput materials... View Details
- May 2008
- Case
Sensors Unlimited: Bringing InGaAs Technology to the Market
By: Willy C. Shih
Sensors Unlimited was a small start-up in short-wavelength infrared imaging. Its learning base came out of Bell Labs, RCA's Sarnoff Lab, and the Rockwell Science Center, and as it built its capabilities and ventured into new application areas, it discovered a “killer... View Details
- March 2008 (Revised April 2008)
- Case
Corning: 156 Years of Innovation
By: H. Kent Bowen and Courtney Purrington
The executive team at Corning has committed to double the rate of new business creation per decade, while at the same time growing the company's current businesses, including glass substrates for LCD displays. Their strategy, built on more than 150 years of successful... View Details
- March 2008
- Case
Novartis AG: Science-Based Business
By: H. Kent Bowen and Courtney Purrington
Novartis is a science-based drug company, which has important implications for its business strategy. It is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world with over $38B in sales in 2007. Pharmaceuticals account for slightly over $24B of that total. In 2007,... View Details
- February 2008 (Revised August 2008)
- Case
EXACT Sciences Corp.: Commercializing a Diagnostic Test
This case addresses the challenges of commercializing molecular diagnostics. Along the way, it explains the technology, payment system, and the measures used to assess the value of a diagnostic test. View Details
- September 2007 (Revised May 2009)
- Case
Syndexa and Technology Transfer at Harvard University
By: Richard G. Hamermesh and David Kiron
Gokhan Hotamisligil is a star researcher at Harvard School of Public Health who has made groundbreaking discoveries linking fat cells, inflammation, and diabetes. He now wants to form a company to commercialize these discoveries. At the same time, Isaac Kohlberg, the... View Details
- February 2007 (Revised April 2010)
- Case
Wyeth Pharmaceuticals: Spurring Scientific Creativity with Metrics
By: Robert S. Huckman, Gary P. Pisano and Mark Rennella
Describes the reorganization of the drug discovery organization at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and focuses on the decisions to: (1) centralize decision-making within drug discovery and (2) institute numerical metrics--jointly affecting all R&D scientists--for the progression... View Details
- 2006
- Book
Science Business: The Promise, the Reality, and the Future of Biotech
By: Gary P. Pisano
Why has the biotechnology industry failed to perform up to expectations—despite all its promise? In Science Business, Gary P. Pisano answers this question by providing an incisive critique of the industry. Pisano not only reveals the underlying causes of... View Details
- June 2006 (Revised April 2007)
- Case
BioScale
By: H. Kent Bowen and Bradley R. Staats
In 2004, Mark Lundstrom must decide on a funding method and strategic approach for BioScale, a biotechnology company that he founded. BioScale has developed a microchip-based bioanalytical platform that can be used to detect very small concentrations of cells, viruses,... View Details
- May 2006 (Revised June 2006)
- Case
Codon Devices
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and David Kiron
In December 2005, 40-year-old John Danner was about to make his first presentation to the board of directors of Codon Devices, a one-year-old biotechnology start-up based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After a month as the company's CEO, Danner was prepared to lay out... View Details
- May 2006
- Case
A123Systems
By: H. Kent Bowen, Kenneth P Morse and Douglass Cannon
A 123Systems was a young company that was founded on basic materials science research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A co-founder of the company, Yet-Ming Chiang, was a full professor at MIT and served as scientific adviser. Intellectual property based... View Details
- October 2004 (Revised March 2005)
- Case
Langer Lab, The: Commercializing Science
By: H. Kent Bowen, Alex Kazaks, Ayr Muir-Harmony and Bryce LaPierre
Professor Robert Langer's laboratory at MIT is the source of an unusually large number of published papers, patents, and technology licenses to start-up and established companies in the biomedical industry. Explores Langer's leadership and other factors that create a... View Details
- July 2004 (Revised March 2006)
- Case
RosettaNet and ebXML: Betting on the Right eBusiness Standard
By: F. Warren McFarlan and Veronika Belokhvostova
A major enterprise software company must select which technologies to support, based on their long-term and short-term viability and benefits. The protagonist is involved in the release of the B2B integration component of major enterprise software whose purpose is to... View Details
- 2004
- Article
Do Firms Change Capabilities by Hiring New People? A Study of the Adoption of Science-based Drug Discovery
By: Rebecca M. Henderson, Nicola Lacetera and Iain Cockburn
- November 2002 (Revised June 2003)
- Case
Monsanto: Leadership in a New Environment
By: Ray A. Goldberg, James Weber and James M Beagle
Monsanto is the biotechnology leader in agriculture. How does it use its leadership in Round Up to fund long-term research and development in biotechnology that is acceptable to the priority system of consumers in different parts of the world? Includes color exhibits. View Details
- November 2001
- Case
Aventis CropScience and StarLink Corn
By: Ray A. Goldberg and James M Beagle
Aventis CropScience responds to the discovery of an unapproved corn variety in food supplies and draws lessons for the company, industry, and governments. View Details