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Medium Growth Revenue Strategy

The Pill Company

#Healthcare #Pharmaceutical
ProHub Comment

This is a strong medium-difficulty case that tests candidates' ability to structure a declining business problem using MECE frameworks, perform quantitative analysis on patent expiration impact, and make strategic tradeoff decisions under uncertainty. The case progresses from diagnosis (identifying Green Pill as the largest revenue driver) to strategic evaluation (Do Nothing vs. License options), requiring both analytical rigor and strategic thinking about long-term implications.

Estimated Time 15 minutes
Difficulty Medium
Source Duke
50 / 100
Your client is a multinational pharmaceutical company. The client has a portfolio of drugs for major disease areas, including cancer, cardiovascular, and gastrointestinal diseases. The client has experienced a decline in revenue over the last 18 months, and is fearful of further declines, especially given that its most commercially successful drug, which treats acid reflux, a gastrointestinal disease, will be going off patent in the next year. What are the areas they should investigate to change the course of this trend?

Clarifying Information

  1. Geography: Multinational company (stated in first line); can think of PillCo. like a GSK or AZ that operates around the world
  2. Product Mix: Current disease areas includes Neuroscience, Respiratory, Gastrointestinal, and Cardiovascular
  3. Each disease area includes a portfolio of drug products
  4. Business model: like that of a typical large pharmaceutical company producing brand name drugs from in-house R&D to a commercial sales teams that sell through typical channels with doctors needing to prescribe the drug
  5. Competition: Generic companies will be new competitors
  6. In addition to other issues, the decline is attributed to the introduction of generics in the US and other established markets. It’s fair to attribute 50% of the decline to generics. The additional declines were related to Medicaid liability and other inventory related issues.