Amylin Pharmaceuticals (B)

Richard G. Hamermesh; Carin-Isabel  Knoop

Supplement | HBS Case Collection | November 2012

Amylin Pharmaceuticals (B)

by Richard G. Hamermesh and Carin-Isabel Knoop

Abstract

Amylin Pharmaceuticals brought two first-in-class diabetes drugs to market, Byetta and Symlin, in 2005, which were sold in over 80 countries with $650.7 million in sales by 2011. However, the company remained unprofitable as sales plateaued. The small pharmaceutical company was hurt by long delays in bringing Bydureon, a once-a-week version of Byetta, to market, which allowed a competitor time to establish itself in the once-a-week market. Amylin also failed to develop a marketable anti-obesity drug after the purchase of the promising leptin molecule from Amgen, Inc. In 2012, Amylin was acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb for $5.3 billion.

Keywords: Pharmaceuticals; Bristol-Myers Squibb; Health Care and Treatment; Pharmaceutical Industry; United States;

Language: English

Format: Print

7 pages

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Citation:

Hamermesh, Richard G., and Carin-Isabel Knoop. "Amylin Pharmaceuticals (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 813-091, November 2012.

Dr. Varda Shalev bridges technology and medicine through Maccabitech, a “research and innovation wing” of Israel’s Maccabi Healthcare Services (MHS) that partners with research institutions, pharmaceutical companies, and startups. Shalev hopes to scale Maccabitech's efforts through the creation of a platform that will enable external researchers to access MHS data. Yet it is unclear how best to structure the platform and its policies. How can Maccabitech maximize impact while still creating value for MHS? And what risks does Maccabitech need to manage?

Case | HBS Case Collection | August 2018 (Revised March 2019)

Facebook—Can Ethics Scale in the Digital Age?

George A. Riedel and Carin-Isabel Knoop

Since its founding in 2004, Facebook has built a phenomenally successful business at global scale to become the fifth most valuable public company in the world. The revelation of Cambridge Analytica events in March 2018, where 78 million users' information was leaked in a 2016 U.S. election cycle, exposed a breach of trust/privacy among its user community. In the past, growth at any costs appeared to be the de facto strategy. Now many voices such as regulators, advertisers, ethicists, shareholders and users argued for a more responsible approach to addressing their concerns. Mark Zuckerberg (CEO/Chair/Founder) and Sheryl Sandberg (COO) mapped out their six-point plan to address this existential threat. Could they continue to grow and rectify the breach of trust/privacy? Did other stakeholders have some greater responsibility too? In addition to issues of privacy and trust, there is a growing chorus of concern about “content moderation”—not for the easy topics like spam or copyright material—but for the hard things revolving around political points of view, hate speech, polarizing perspectives, etc. How will Facebook strike the balance between free speech and corrosive content across billions of users and dozens of languages? Are they the arbiters of truth/censorship in the digital world?

Keywords: Ethics; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Trust; Business Model; Corporate Accountability;

Citation:

Riedel, George A., and Carin-Isabel Knoop. "Facebook—Can Ethics Scale in the Digital Age?" Harvard Business School Case 319-030, August 2018. (Revised March 2019.) View Details

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Amylin Pharmaceuticals (B)

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