Publications

Regina E. Herzlinger is the Nancy R. McPherson Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. She was the first woman to be tenured and chaired at Harvard Business School and serve on many established and start-up corporate health care/medical... View Details

Keywords: health care; insurance industry; medical devices; retailing; digital health

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

March 2010 (Revised May 2012)
Case

Myelin Repair Foundation: Accelerating Drug Discovery Through Collaboration

By: Karim R. Lakhani and Paul R. Carlile

This case presents the Myelin Repair Foundation's accelerated research collaboration model for drug discovery. It highlights the challenges of building a multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional research collaboration that is attempting to create a treatment for... View Details

Keywords: Research and Development; Intellectual Property; Risk and Uncertainty; Strategic Planning; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Health Disorders; Pharmaceutical Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

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

10 Aug 2020
Research & Ideas

COVID's Surprising Toll on Careers of Women Scientists

COVID-19 is claiming an unexpected career toll among scientific researchers, and particularly on women, new research shows. If you are female, have young children, or work in a lab, you are more likely to feel the career-crunching effects... View Details

Keywords: by Rachel Layne; Pharmaceutical; Pharmaceutical; Pharmaceutical

December 2002
Article

Knowledge Seeking and Location Choice of Foreign Direct Investment in the United States

By: Juan Alcacer and Wilbur Chung

To what extent do firms go abroad to access technology available in other locations? This paper examines whether and when state technical capabilities attract foreign investment in manufacturing from 1987-1993. We find that on average state R&D intensity does not... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Acquisition; Foreign Direct Investment; Research and Development; Information Technology; Production; Geographic Location; United States

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11 Sep 2007
First Look

First Look: September 11, 2007

Limited was facing significant pricing pressure in their cash cow business, that primarily consisted of manufacturing Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs). To combat this commoditization, Biocon's leadership had chosen an... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

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

November 2006 (Revised May 2025)
Case

Eli Lilly: Developing Cymbalta

By: Elie Ofek and Ron Laufer

Anticipating the expiration of its Prozac patent, Eli Lilly has to make tough decisions regarding the development of its next-generation antidepressant drug. In particular, the company needs to decide whether to first establish that once-a-day dosing for Cymbalta... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Marketing Strategy; Product Launch; Product Development; Research and Development; Pharmaceutical Industry

Web

Strategy - Doctoral

Strategy The doctoral program in Strategy encourages students to pursue multi-disciplinary research that utilizes multiple methodologies—quantitative, as well as qualitative—to study how companies and industries around the world develop... View Details

Elon Kohlberg

Elon Kohlberg is the Royal Little Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. His research is mainly in Game Theory, in particular the study of non-cooperative equilibrium.

Professor Kohlberg has taught many courses in the MBA,... View Details

Keywords: pharmaceuticals; pharmaceuticals; pharmaceuticals; pharmaceuticals; pharmaceuticals

12 Dec 2022
Research & Ideas

Buy-In from Black Patients Suffers When Drug Trials Don’t Include Them

Black patients and their doctors may be more open to new medications if drug trials included more Black people, new research shows. Currently, Black Americans represent just 5 percent of drug trial participants. Nearly three-quarters of... View Details

Keywords: by Scott Van Voorhis; Pharmaceutical; Pharmaceutical

11 Aug 2003
Research & Ideas

Cheap, Fast, and In Control: How Tech Aids Innovation

experimentation and are triggering fundamental changes in R&D processes and performance in such fields as integrated circuit design, automotive development, and pharmaceutical drug discovery. Computer modeling and simulation, rapid... View Details

Keywords: by Wendy Guild

28 Jul 2008
Research & Ideas

Making the Decision to Franchise (or not)

of store-level employees. "Franchising is a very observable, real choice that organizations make," says Campbell. It's also an extreme solution to the challenge of operating across multiple markets; future research will focus on other,... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Retail

December 1999
Case

Agrochemicals at Ciba-Geigy AG (A)

By: Michael L. Tushman, Wendy Smith and Daniel Radov

After spending five years to develop a revolutionary product, the director of Ciba-Geigy's fungicide research department is handed an unfavorable market study. The case details the R&D process for the new product, including information on corporate partnerships,... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Research and Development; Innovation and Invention; Innovation Strategy; Product Launch; Marketing Channels; Change Management; Product Development; Business Processes; Organizational Structure; Corporate Accountability; Pharmaceutical Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry

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June 2003 (Revised March 2008)
Case

Schering-Plough and Genome Therapeutics: Discovering an Asthma Gene

By: Regina E. Herzlinger and Marc Aquino

Personalized medicine requires the identification of mutated genes. Schering-Plough's search for the one related to asthma requires finding families with the disease. Examines the industry that helps conduct such research, including contract research organizations. View Details

Keywords: Health Disorders; Research and Development; Genetics; Pharmaceutical Industry; Pharmaceutical Industry