Pharmaceutical industry

Companies say they want breakthrough products, but most are far more adept at making incremental improvements to existing lines. A pioneering division at 3M successfully navigated a process that leads to breakthrough thinking.

Your entire day revolves around willpower.

Despite the enormous time and energy that goes into strategy development, many companies have little to show for their efforts. Indeed, research by the...

Identify, quantify, and manage the risks to your company’s reputation long before a problem or crisis strikes.

When corporate leaders or the organizations they represent mess up, they face the difficult decision of whether to apologize publicly. A public apology...

Lancaster-Webb’s surgical gloves are flying off the shelves, thanks to the on-line endorsements of an otherwise indiscreet employee. Should the CEO consider her a priceless marketing weapon or a grave security risk?

A conversation with Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier

Gene therapy is a medical breakthrough, but today it's prohibitively expensive.

They are prioritizing profits over R&D.

Strategy is the art of creating value. It provides the intellectual frameworks, conceptual models, and governing ideas that allow a company’s managers to identify opportunities for bringing value to customers and for delivering that value at a profit. In this respect, strategy is the way a company defines its business and links together the only […]

In this interview with HBR senior editor David Champion, Mark Levin, the founder and CEO of Millennium Pharmaceuticals, describes his vision of the future...

The HR manager at Medignostics sees a disaster on the horizon: The company’s workforce is aging, and it can’t attract young talent. But his bosses are more concerned with cutting costs here and now. How can he persuade them to take the long view?

Don’t settle for just making your product better. Let your customers make it great.

The promise of generics remains unfulfilled.

How scientific institutions can address systemic racism.

True competitive advantages are harder to find and maintain than people realize. The odds are best in tightly drawn markets, not big, sprawling ones.

The merger between two pharmaceutical companies generated headlines first—and then headaches. One reason: CEO Steve Lindell has two executives for every available slot. As the stock price drops and talented people head for the exits, he must quickly decide whom to keep and whom to let go. Pass the aspirin.

Saving patients money doesn't have to hurt business.

Companies aggressively research what customers want. Yet most vendors just don't understand what customers expect of their salespeople.

The organization and goals of a sales force have to change as businesses start up, grow, mature, and decline.