MorphoSys AG: The Evolution of a Biotechnology Business Model

Gary P. Pisano; Ryan  Johnson; Carin-Isabel  Knoop

Case | HBS Case Collection | March 2011

MorphoSys AG: The Evolution of a Biotechnology Business Model

by Gary P. Pisano, Ryan Johnson and Carin-Isabel Knoop

Abstract

In the biotech world, the 18-year-old Munich-based company MorphoSys was a rarity: it was profitable. The company achieved this profitability not by developing and selling its own drugs, but by licensing access to its proprietary library of human antibodies. Recently, the company decided to deviate from this model, and attempt to develop its own proprietary products. The case allows analysis of "license vs. vertically integrate" business model decisions, and can be used to teach principles of business model design and the functioning of markets for know-how.

Keywords: Business Model; Profit; Intellectual Property; Rights; Risk Management; Market Platforms; Product Development; Business and Shareholder Relations; Vertical Integration; Biotechnology Industry; Munich;

Format: Print

17 pages

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Citation:

Pisano, Gary P., Ryan Johnson, and Carin-Isabel Knoop. "MorphoSys AG: The Evolution of a Biotechnology Business Model." Harvard Business School Case 611-046, March 2011.

Working Paper | 2019

Long-Term Firm Growth: An Empirical Analysis of US Manufacturers 1959-2015

Giovanni Dosi, Marco Grazzi, Daniele Moschella, Gary P. Pisano and Federico Tamagni

Firm growth is an essential feature of market economies, shaping together macroeconomic performance and the evolution of industry structures. As a po-tential indicator of organizational “ﬁtness” within a competitive environment, ﬁrm growth is also a central concern to both the practice and theory of business strategy. Despite both its theoretical and practical importance, though, growth remains a poorly understood property of ﬁrms. While previous studies have documented the highly skewed nature of ﬁrm growth rates, we know far less about the persistence of growth rates over long-periods of time. For instance, do “fast growers” tend to maintain their relative growth rates advantages over long-periods or is superior growth a transitory phenomenon? Is, as predicted by evolutionary and capability based theories of the ﬁrm, the process of ﬁrm growth path-dependent or is it more akin to a random walk? The answers to these questions are central to building a robust theory of ﬁrm growth. This paper attempts to address this gap in our empirical knowledge of ﬁrm growth using a dataset that spans 50 years, which al-lows the abandonment of the assumption, common to all incumbent studies, that the stochastic paths of all ﬁrms stem from the same generating process. These exploratory results indicate that growth rate persistence is there and my be even substantial for some ﬁrms, but it is rare. We also study the links between the micro-properties of ﬁrm growth within sectors and the patterns of aggregate growth of these same sectors. Indeed, we ﬁnd circumstantial but widespread evidence that heterogeneity across ﬁrms correlates with industry dynamism.

Citation:

Dosi, Giovanni, Marco Grazzi, Daniele Moschella, Gary P. Pisano, and Federico Tamagni. "Long-Term Firm Growth: An Empirical Analysis of US Manufacturers 1959-2015." Working Paper, May 2019. View Details

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MorphoSys AG: The Evolution of a Biotechnology Business Model

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