EC229 Economics of Strategy
Introduction
1. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is a global healthcare company specialized in the research, development, manufacturing and marketing of pharmaceutical and consumer health-related products. The company has operations in 120 countries, with products being sold in over
150 countries. (Description)
2. As a dominant player in the pharmaceutical industry, GSK operates in an oligopolistic market. It is highly cash generative, with increased sales growth and shareholder returns.
(Oligopoly)
3. Its main competitor is American pharmaceutical giant, Pfizer. Financially, GSK is not the best performer (with $108 bn compared to Pfizer’s $161 bn), but it manages to differentiate itself, which is the key to
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This is critical to differentiating its products and maintaining growth.
a. Its 5-year partnership with McLaren is one of the more notable marketing strategies.
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b. Divestment has also helped GSK raise profits in 2012, as it refocuses on its core brands. The graph shows the impact of advertising on profits.
3. (Collusion) The ViiV healthcare, a collusion between GSK and Pfizer, helps both companies reduce costs in the race in HIV R&D, one of the most expensive public health programmes. In an oligopoly, the explicit collusion of two firms will pay because it enables the players to jointly charges monopolist prices and earn monopolist profits. However, it is for the same reason that there is an incentive to cheat.
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4. (R&D) Ultimately, if oligopolists want to achieve and enhance supernormal profits, they need to erect barriers to entry to protect their competitive advantage. This is why the ultimate strategy lies within R&D. It ensures that GSK remains a sustainable business.
a. Over the past 4 years, GSK has had 16 new drugs and vaccines approved in the USA, more than any of its competitors. It has also sustained late-stage pipeline of around
30 assets.
b. R&D is a long run investment that allows GSK to enjoy reduced MC, which further extends its profits. Nonetheless, it is essential that it protects these assets through patents, in order to achieve monopoly powers over these assets.
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5.
Imagine that you have decided to open a small ice cream stand on campus called "Ice-Campusades." You are very excited because you love ice cream (delicious!) and this is a fun way for you to apply your business and economics skills! Here is the first month's scenario--you order the same number (and the same variety) of ice creams each day from the ice cream suppliers, and your ice creams are always marked at $1.50 each. However, you notice that there are days when ice creams remain unsold but other days when there are not enough ice creams for the number of customers.
Using the data and your own economic knowledge, assess the case for financing universities mainly through charging fees to their students.
Those target markets who rely on Johnson & Johnson health and medical needs are mostly patients, doctors, nurses and civilians. Therefore, the company need to sustain their products and services over all these years to ensure that lower income people and underprivileged patients are able to access on their medicines. This however requires the company to balance patient’s access and competitive dynamics in line with their need as the company need to have enough resources to keep on being innovating, creating new and better medicines and at the same time making sure there will be a fair return to the shareholder as well. Johnson & Johnson also work closely with the governments, physicians, non-government organizations and the international donors all around the world to provide its products within an affordable prices to its
Improvements in health care and life sciences are an important source of gains in health and longevity globally. The development of innovative pharmaceutical products plays a critical role in ensuring these continued gains. To encourage the continued development of new drugs, economic incentives are essential. These incentives are principally provided through direct and indirect government funding, intellectual property laws, and other policies that favor innovation. Without such incentives, private corporations, which bring to market the vast majority of new drugs, would be less able to assume the risks and costs necessary to continue their research and development (R&D). In the United States, government action has focused on creating the environment that would best encourage further innovation and yield a constant flow of new and innovative medicines to the market. The goal has been to ensure that consumers would benefit both from technological breakthroughs and the competition that further innovation generates. The United States also relies on a strong generic pharmaceutical industry to create added competitive pressure to lower drug prices. Recent action by the Administration and Congress has accelerated the flow of generic medicines to the market for precisely that reason. By contrast, in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
2. (Price Leadership) why might a price–leadership model of oligopoly not be an effective means of collusion in an oligopoly?
B. The firm would stand to gain much additional revenue if its competitors did not follow suit by raising their prices.
As an employee of the World Bank, you have been asked to research 1 economic concern in a South American country and write a report on your findings.
What is the effect on the equilibrium price and equilibrium quantity of orange juice if the price of apple juice decreases and the wage rate paid to orange grove workers increases?
2. What do the results say about how firms in this industry can deliver strong financial returns in different ways?
SABMiller and Diageo are two largest beer producer in Africa. ”SABMiller, if combined with its partnership with France's Castel Group, sells roughly 60% Africa’s beer by volume. Diageo’s also expands its operation successfully that Senator Keg, its supercheap beer, is also now number two most popular beers in Kenya. As these giant brewers monopolized Africa’s beer market, it can be said that the market has an oligopoly market structure, and both pursue identic operations, so the market can be labeled as competitive. The interdependence that is happening between both brewers makes the competition happens. As SABMiller produces Impala that is half price from its previous beer Manica, Diageo produces Senator Keg to balance it. Diageo
In this way, the Fed manages price inflation in the economy. So bonds affect the U.S. economy by determining interest rates. This affects the amount of liquidity. This determines how easy or difficult it is to buy things on credit, take out loans for cars, houses or education, and expand businesses. In other words, bonds affect everything in the economy. Treasury bonds impact the economy by providing extra spending money for the government and consumers. This is because Treasury bonds are essentially a loan to the government that is usually purchased by domestic consumers. However, for a variety of reasons, foreign governments have been purchasing a larger percentage of Treasury bonds, in effect providing the U.S. government with a loan. This allows the government to spend more, which stimulates the economy. Treasury bonds also help the consumer. When there is a great demand for bonds, it lowers the interest rate.
1) According to the Law of Demand, the demand curve for a good will A) shift leftward when the price of the good increases. B) shift rightward when the price of the good increases. C) slope downward. D) slope upward. Answer: C 2) An increase in the price of pork will lead to A) a movement up along the demand curve. B) a movement down along the demand curve. C) a rightward shift of the demand curve. D) a leftward shift of the demand curve. Answer: A 3) An increase in consumer incomes will lead to A) a rightward shift of the demand curve for plasma TVs. B) a movement upward along the demand curve for plasma TVs. C) a rightward shift of the supply curve for plasma TVs. D) no change of the demand curve for plasma TVs. Answer:
Barriers to Entry. In general, a monopoly by one company possesses the power to create barriers to entry for competing companies in a
GSK is the 2nd largest pharmaceutical firm in the world, and the largest in the UK by sales and profits, it is responsible for 7% of the worlds pharmaceutical market, and has its stocks listed both in UK and US (O 'Rourke, 2002). The origin of the so called blockbuster model, is partly linked with Glaxo (as it was previously known). In the early 80’s, then Glaxo brought to light their first blockbuster drug, Zantac, which was an anti-ulcer drug, which was very similar to the a pre existing drug Tagamet (first ever blockbuster) sold by Smith Kline & French, their completion at the time (MONTALBAN and SAKINÇ, 2011). The introduction of this drug, brought about an increasing sales force in the US, the company soon became dependent on the drug, because it represented a large part of their profit. In 2002, 8 blockbusters of GSK contributed to $14.240 million sales revenue, taking up 53% of its total ethical sales (Froud et al 2006). However, due to the nature of the pharmaceutical industry, the patent began to expire, in other to avoid the patent cliff, Glaxo merged with Wellcome in 1995, which ensured a growing number of sales force, and with Beecham in 2000 (Froud et al., 2006) this merger, boosted the confidence of investors, by growing the business inorganically. For Big Pharma, this block buster model is very profitable, because with the high cost of R&D, the drugs are able to generate ample profit, to cover the sunk costs