Publications

17 Jul 2024
News

Harvard Business School Announces Its 2024-2025 Blavatnik Fellows

October 2023 (Revised May 2024)
Case

Thermo Fisher Scientific: Foray into Contract Research

By: Satish Tadikonda, William Marks and Kevin Emancipator

After publicly declaring that they would not enter the contract research organization (CRO) business in 2017, Thermo Fisher purchased Pharmaceutical Product Development (PPD), one of the biggest players in the CRO space, in 2021. Much had changed in the intervening... View Details

Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions; Customer Focus and Relationships; Corporate Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Biotechnology Industry

April 2009 (Revised October 2010)
Case

Bob Beall at the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation

By: Robert Steven Kaplan and Sophie Hood

Bob Beall is the Chief Executive Officer of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF). CFF is an extremely successful organization, but Beall has to determine how to manage the organization through the financial crisis of 2008-2009. In this situation, donations are likely... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Financial Crisis; Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Governing and Advisory Boards; Leadership; Crisis Management; Nonprofit Organizations

March 2024
Case

Biomanufacturing Decentralization by Stämm

By: Paul A. Gompers, Jenyfeer Martínez Buitrago and Mariana Cal

In Buenos Aires, Argentina, cousins Llamazares and D’Alvia founded Stämm, a startup based on the idea of decentralizing biomanufacturing processes and downsizing biotech facilities. After raising its seed and series A rounds, and while finalizing its series B round in... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Selection and Staffing; Technological Innovation; Science-Based Business; Business Strategy; Commercialization; Growth and Development Strategy; Product Launch; Research and Development; Biotechnology Industry; Latin America; South America; Argentina; Buenos Aires

February 2006
Case

Michelle Levene (A)

Michelle Levene discovers that she is pregnant a few days before receiving an offer for her dream job. The new position would require Levene to travel extensively, something she would not be able to do towards the end of the pregnancy and while caring for a newborn.... View Details

Keywords: Work-Life Balance

January 2006
Case

Jack Strang at SequenceLabs

By: Mukti Khaire, John J. Gabarro and Lynda M. Applegate

How can entrepreneur manage his firm if things go wrong despite having a great idea, a solid team, and financial backing? Jack Strang founded a biotech firm with his friend Peter Evans, to develop molecular pathway-based "cures" for metabolic disorders. The idea was... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Business or Company Management; Venture Capital; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Business Growth and Maturation; Failure; Biotechnology Industry

June 2021
Case

uBiome

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Olivia Graham

uBiome provided clinical tests that sequenced the DNA of human microbiome samples, providing data on health conditions directly to consumers or to prescribing physicians. Founded in 2012, the San Francisco-based startup raised $105 million from top-tier venture capital... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Crime and Corruption; Insolvency and Bankruptcy

June 2013
Article

Signals across Multiple Networks: How Venture Capital and Alliance Networks Affect Interorganizational Collaboration

By: Umit Ozmel, Jeffrey J. Reuer and Ranjay Gulati

In this paper, we examine the contingent effects of signals generated by different types of networks on new ventures' formation of future strategic alliances. We argue that the signaling value of a given tie in reducing adverse selection is more pronounced when another... View Details

Keywords: Networks; Venture Capital; Alliances

Find at Harvard

February 2009
Case

Avid Radiopharmaceuticals: The Venture Debt Question

By: Matthew Rhodes-Kropf and Ann Leamon

The CEO of a promising biotech company must decide how to respond to the macro-economic slump of late 2008. He had planned to pursue an aggressive schedule, moving the firm's Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease imaging compounds through clinical trials and into the... View Details

Keywords: Financial Crisis; Entrepreneurship; Borrowing and Debt; Venture Capital; Financial Management; Investment; Health Testing and Trials; Expansion; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

January 2020
Case

Celata Bioinnovations

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

In December 2019, Jon Hu (HBS ‘19) and Dr. Samantha Dale Strasser, co-founders of Celata Bioinnovations, were raising $1 million to launch their company. They had founded Celata less than six months earlier with the aim of redefining the drug discovery process.... View Details

September 2013 (Revised November 2015)
Case

Living Proof: Are We a Technology Company or a Beauty Company?

By: Willy Shih

Jon Flint came up with the idea of a science-based beauty company while talking with his hairdresser about the problems with typical hair and skin care products. Together with a small team that included Professor Robert Langer of MIT, he committed to assemble a team... View Details

January 2009 (Revised July 2009)
Case

Targanta Therapeutics: Hitting a Moving Target

By: Arthur A. Daemmrich

This case explores regulatory, product testing, and business strategy at Targanta Therapeutics, a biotech company preparing its first new drug application to the FDA. In October 2007, Mark Leuchtenberger, president and CEO of Targanta—which has just held a successful... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Entrepreneurship; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Health Testing and Trials; Product Development; Business and Government Relations; Business Strategy; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

April 2002
Case

In vivo to in vitro to in silico: Coping with Tidal Waves of Data at Biogen

By: Juan Enriquez-Cabot, Gary P. Pisano and Gaye Bok

Biogen is a successful biotech company facing a critical juncture. CEO John Mullen ponders how technological changes introduced into the research function will shape larger corporate decisions. This world in which biotechnology companies operated had changed... View Details

Keywords: Change; Decisions; Product Development; Research and Development; Expansion; Technology; Biotechnology Industry

Web

Class Profile - MBA

use a 4.0 grading system) 143 Domestic Universities 153 International Universities Pre-MBA Industry Consulting Consumer Products / Retail / E-Commerce Financial Services Health Care / Biotech Manufacturing / Industrial / Energy Media /... View Details

Web

Overview - MBA

students’ existing biotech and life sciences knowledge and equips them with the latest business and scientific insights. Hear from Program Advisors on the impact of this program and the power of the Harvard View Details

Web

FAQs - MBA

Boston’s biotech, research and entrepreneurial ecosystems? What resources did MS/MBA students have and are there opportunities outside the classroom? The MS/MBA Biotech program is part of a larger community of health care interested... View Details

15 May 2007
First Look

First Look: May 15, 2007

Working PapersI'll Have the Ice Cream Soon and the Vegetables Later: Decreasing Impatience over Time in Online Grocery Orders Authors:Todd Rogers, Katherine L. Milkman, and Max H. Bazerman Abstract How do decisions for the near future differ from decisions for the... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

March 2023
Case

Moderna

By: Marco Iansiti, Karim R. Lakhani, Hannah Mayer, Kerry Herman, Allison J. Wigen and Dave Habeeb

This multimedia case follows the story of Moderna and its entry into vaccine development in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In summer 2020, Stephane Bancel, CEO of biotech firm Moderna, faces several challenges as his company races to develop a vaccine for COVID-19.... View Details

Keywords: Health Pandemics; Research and Development; Digital Transformation; Health Testing and Trials; Biotechnology Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry