VRIO Analysis
Bristol-Myers Squibb and other pharmaceutical companies have very limited space for the development of competitive advantage. This is due to the limitations set in patents available for new pharmaceuticals. Most chemicals in pharmaceutical products have an equivalently functional substitute making it possible to have multiple products on the market that have identical uses and outcomes. This being the case, pharmaceutical companies can’t rely on one particular product to provide competitive advantage.
Resources and Competencies | Value | Rarity | Imitability | Organized | Competitive Advantage? | R & D | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Sustained | Brand Name | Yes | No | No | No | Parity | Product Diversification |
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Since Bristol-Myers Squibb’s is organized in this way, it has been able to keep the pace very well making it one of the largest research-based pharmaceutical company in the world.
Brand Name
Bristol-Myers Squibb’s gains competitive parity from its brand name in that it has a good reputation for creating products that work well and are safe. This provides value to the customer because they know that the product was heavily researched before it was marketed to the general public.
However, this is not rare among firms in this industry as all new products must be cleared by the Food and Drug Administration before it can be marketed which gives consumers a certain amount of security when choosing a product regardless of who produced it. This also means that it is somewhat easy to imitate. Once you get past the start-up costs, if you produce a product that is not already patented and is approved by the FDA, your product is just as good as the competitors. The reason for the lack of rarity and ease of imitability of the brand name is that, like other pharmaceutical companies, Bristol-Myers Squibb does not push the brand name but rather the name they have assigned to their product. The company’s name does not appear in any of its product’s advertisements. This being the case they must diversify their product line.
Product Diversity
Since researching new pharmaceutical products takes a great deal of time, the only way to keep the
When a pharmaceutical company creates a new drug, it has to go through the FDA and is required to submit a New Drug Application (NDA) to the FDA. The FDA reviews the application to assure that there is an objective proof that the proposed drug is safe and effective. If the
If competitor could immediately copy a new drug the long and high cost development process would be less attractive. In order to encourage drug manufactures to have active R&D, prescription drugs are protected by patents (lasting anywhere from 10-14 years based on the contract). These patents create a monopoly for that drug and ultimately the one for the company that produces it.
The Medicines Company used the saying “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” to the next level. It essentially took what other pharmaceutical companies place on the shelves and never use again as their next product which becomes a money maker. The idea is a great idea if it is well executed. The company cannot take just any type of drug and try to execute it pouring in millions of dollars’ worth of research and development because if the product is not chosen carefully, the product will fail. A simple failure for a drug that was not carefully selected, can damage the company’s image and reputation.
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company is the outcome of the merging of Bristol-Myers and Squibb Corporation in 1989. Bristol-Myers Squibb is one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies head quartered in New York. BMS has global research facilities and manufacturing plants mainly in the United States and Europe (Hoovers, 2015). The corporation has a unique set of strategic principles that help built the company. The company divested in the nutritional and pharmaceutical divisions. BMS expanded its strategies to become a biopharmaceutical leader. According to Hoovers (2015), the company engaged in the String-of- Pearls pharmaceutical strategy that added barriers to imitate biotech drugs and products within the company’s pipeline. This company demonstrates functional-level strategies that focuses on innovation and technology. BMS, the multi-business has undergone issues associated with ethics, research, marketing and quality manufacturing. Therefore, BMS strategies offers insight on the company struggles and operations.
High capital expenditure into research and development, lengthy approval process, marketing before any realized returns are a major deterrent for any new entrant. It is a highly regulated industry. Also, the presence of “big pharma” companies deters new competitors.
Although R&D has been retained by the large pharmaceutical firms, there has been a continuous decline in the R&D productivity. Controlling R&D is imperative to the success of a Pharmaceutical firm. However, as the pharmaceutical industry is maturing, there are diminishing returns to the R&D investment. Fewer and fewer blockbuster drugs are being discovered and therefore R&D is not the most value adding component in the value
In competition law, the vertical organization of a company is relates to that corporations supply chain. Occasionally, a single firm may have fully integrated this supply chain (owning every step from production through sale) but are most often only done so partially. The development of new drugs and technologies falls under intellectual property and may be protected from other competitors by use of patents (Abbott). This actually halts any competition at all in that the patent owner may (and often will) restrict the sale of nearly identical products completely.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office is overloaded with thousands of applications a year, given an applicant can even get their patent filed. In the pharmaceutical industry, the patent process is in dire need of being reformed. A typical patent last twenty years and the process is a little different when it comes to manufacturing drugs compared to other industries. Partly because in the medical field research is more or less openly shared. However, on the pharmaceutical side the more concealed the better the chances are to get good profitable returns. During the beginning stages of getting a drug to market the drug must be tested and adhere to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) guidelines. An FDA approved drug means that the
Introduction AstraZeneca PLC (AstraZeneca, AZN:NYSE, AZN:LSE) is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. It was formed in 1999 from the merger of Sweden’s Astra AB and UK’s Zeneca Group plc. Core Activities AstraZeneca is engaged in the discovery, development, manufacturing and marketing of prescription pharmaceuticals and biological products for important areas of healthcare: Cardiovascular, Gastrointestinal, Infection, Neuroscience, Oncology, and Respiratory and Inflammation. One of the key benefits of the merger between Astra and Zeneca is seen as their portfolio of new products in development: AstraZeneca call this their 'product pipeline'.
It is an Opportunity for a pharmaceutical companies at this stage: (1) company can compare
The clinical research market is a very vast and ever changing market. There are continuous evolutions taking place and there are always new products coming into market everyday. Though it takes many years for a drug to come into market there is a continuous research going on. There are advancements taking place continuously in this industry, which is not possible without the main players and stakeholders within the industry. These stake holders range in a broad area which include site management organizations, researchers, developers, regulators, participants, government agencies etc.
This time Pfizer seemed focused on diversifying the product pipeline by acquiring Wyeth. In fact, in its 2009 financial report, Pfizer reported that one of its key strategies was to have a “diversified product portfolio in which it is expected that no drug will account for more than 10% of our revenues in 2012.” To assess whether Pfizer was able to achieve its goal of diversification the first step is to examine the product pipeline and value chain of Wyeth.
Extremely risky drug discovery and development, lengthening development times which increase development cost, return on investments, and generic competitors.
2. Patent related and Generic Competition: The developed countries like US and Europe have strong patent protection laws which gives a lot of benefits for the pharmaceutical companies. But, the patent
Ranbaxy has also taken steps to build customers awareness. One such initiative was to promote the ‘Rational use of antibiotics’ through the ‘I for Rational’ programme which reached to around 50,000 doctors.