Publications

December 1999 (Revised February 2001)
Case

CVS: The Web Strategy

By: John A. Deighton and Anjali C. Shah

How should America's second-largest pharmacy chain respond to the challenge from online drugstores? What threat does the web pose to bricks and mortar distribution of prescription drugs and the other items that make up 50% of a drugstore's sales? This case describes... View Details

Keywords: Leveraged Buyouts; Marketing Channels; Distribution Channels; Service Operations; Corporate Strategy; Pharmaceutical Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

02 Oct 2000
Research & Ideas

The Dubious Logic of Global Megamergers

with their mega-deals, you can exploit that fact to improve your own competitive position. For instance, while pharmaceutical players such as Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham have made headlines with their merger news, one large... View Details

Keywords: by Pankaj Ghemawat & Fariborz Ghadar

25 Oct 2016
First Look

October 25, 2016

https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=51759 forthcoming American Economic Journal: Economic Policy When Discounts Raise Costs: The Effect of Copay Coupons on Generic Utilization By: Dafny, Leemore S., Christopher Ody, and Matt Schmitt Abstract—Branded View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

02 Jul 2001
Research & Ideas

Ray A. Goldberg

is the blurring of agriculture and pharmaceuticals limited to seeds and plants. Animals are being turned into drug-manufacturing facilities" as well. Thus, Goldberg says, bioengineering may some day lead to animals whose milk, for... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Agriculture & Agribusiness

14 Dec 2010
First Look

First Look: Dec. 14

addresses a decision to replace salesmen netbook PCs with iPhones, including converting the company's sales and customer applications to the iPhone platform. Purchase this case:http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/product/911413-PDF-ENG Hikma View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

02 Mar 2010
First Look

First Look: March 2

innovation in a wide range of other industries, including pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, IT and telecommunications, defense, chemicals, and agriculture. We believe that there are valuable lessons in this research for the energy... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

May 2025 (Revised June 2025)
Supplement

Michael Ku and Global Clinical Supply at Pfizer Inc.: Bringing Hope to Patients (D)

By: Linda A. Hill and Lydia Begag

This fourth installment in the Pfizer Global Clinical Supply (GCS) transformation case series highlights how over a decade of cultural and digital evolution positioned GCS to meet unprecedented global challenges. In 2011, Michael Ku became the Vice President of GCS and... View Details

April 2025
Case

Radical Transformation at Bayer: Dynamic Shared Ownership

By: Boris Groysberg and Gamze Yucaoglu

In 2023, Bill Anderson became CEO of Bayer AG, a 160-year-old life sciences giant looking to strengthen its pharma pipeline, manage debt, and cut through bureaucracy. His bold response: Dynamic Shared Ownership (DSO), a radical model replacing traditional hierarchies... View Details

Keywords: Human Resources; Business Strategy; Alignment; Innovation and Management; Organizational Structure; Pharmaceutical Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

2001
Other Unpublished Work

Clusters of Innovation Initiative: San Diego

By: Michael E. Porter

The study contains a conceptual framework for assessing the competitiveness of regional economies, an analysis of the San Diego region overall, as well as detailed assessments of two representative clusters—biotechnology/pharmaceuticals and communications. The report... View Details

Keywords: Clusters; Economics; Industry Clusters; Economy; Growth and Development; Pharmaceutical Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; San Diego

Read Now

2014
Working Paper

Bio-Piracy or Prospering Together? Fuzzy Set and Qualitative Analysis of Herbal Patenting by Firms

By: Prithwiraj Choudhury and Tarun Khanna

Since the 1990s, several Western firms have filed patents based on medicinal herbs from emerging markets, evoking protests from local stakeholders against 'bio-piracy'. We explore conditions under which firms and local stakeholders share rents from such patents. Our... View Details

Keywords: Rents From New Technology; Local Stakeholders; Herbal Patents; QCA; Fuzzy Set Analysis; Qualitative Case Studies; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Patents; Emerging Markets; Health Care and Treatment; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues; Pharmaceutical Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

Read Now

September 1996
Case

Food and Drug Administration: Business as Unusual at CDER

By: Steven C. Wheelwright and James Leonard

Keywords: Government Administration; Pharmaceutical Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

Find at Harvard

November 1998
Case

Wegmans Food Markets: Diabetes Counseling

By: Ray A. Goldberg, David E. Bell and Ann Leamon

Danny Wegman, president of Wegmans Food Markets, is trying to decide how to evaluate the success of a nutrition-counseling program for diabetics, and whether and how to expand the program beyond the two stores currently involved. Wegmans, with 57 stores and $2.3... View Details

Keywords: Performance Evaluation; Expansion; Programs; Human Needs; Financial Management; Health Care and Treatment; Nutrition; Consumer Behavior; Pharmaceutical Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

16 Oct 2007
First Look

First Look: October 16, 2007

this case: http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=508036 Michael Fernandes at Nicholas Piramal Harvard Business School Case 408-001 Michael Fernandes, the Director of Custom Manufacturing Operations at the View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

15 Feb 2000
Research & Ideas

The Right Connections

pharmaceutical companies — what the authors call downstream social capital — had a direct impact on the size of the startup's IPO. "Downstream social capital was essential in attracting the interest of a top investment bank and... View Details

Keywords: by Judith A. Ross

July 2013 (Revised November 2021)
Module Note

Exploration vs. Exploitation

By: Willy Shih

This module note introduces James March's concept of exploration and exploitation, and the management challenge of balancing the allocation of resources to the two activities in the firm. The note also touches on the O'Reilly and Tushman paper on the ambidextrous... View Details