SSRIs and Non-SSRIs: Case Histories of Significant Medical Advances

Amar  Bhidé; Srikant M. Datar; Katherine  Stebbins

Working Paper | HBS Working Paper Series | 2020

SSRIs and Non-SSRIs: Case Histories of Significant Medical Advances

by Amar Bhidé, Srikant M. Datar and Katherine Stebbins

Abstract

Prozac is widely hailed as “a breakthrough drug for depression.” In 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that over 264 million people worldwide suffer from depression, and 800,000 die by suicide each year. In 2014, researchers calculated the economic impact of depression—in terms of lost productivity, absenteeism, and treatment costs—to be USD$63 billion per year in the United States alone. Depression’s toll on lives and livelihoods prompted the WHO to place Prozac on its list of essential medicines in 2009.

Keywords: Health Care and Treatment; Technological Innovation; Innovation Strategy; Technology Adoption; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Innovation and Invention; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;

Language: English

Format: Print

15 pages

Citation:

Bhidé, Amar, Srikant M. Datar, and Katherine Stebbins. "SSRIs and Non-SSRIs: Case Histories of Significant Medical Advances." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-135, July 2020.

In 2017, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved an immunotherapeutic treatment, called CAR-T therapy, for two kinds of blood cancers—acute leukemia (ALL) and a lymphoma. We describe 1) how CAR-T works; 2) the foundational advances and discoveries; 3) development of CAR-T therapy; and 4) the situation in 2019.

By many accounts, sub-contracting is in the vogue while traditional employment relationships are on the outs. Ten years ago free-lancers, independent subcontractors and the like accounted for about 10 percent of the labor force; today they constitute 25 percent. Of the 23 million net new jobs generated in the U.S. since 1974, 60 percent have been for free-lancers and subcontractors. The phenomenon appears especially strong in the large publicly traded firms - while revenue growth in Fortune 500 companies has kept up with GNP, these companies have added virtually no new jobs since the early 1970s and have increasingly become what BusinessWeek calls "hollow corporations".

Faculty & Research

SSRIs and Non-SSRIs: Case Histories of Significant Medical Advances

Abstract

Citation:

About the Authors

More from these Authors