THINKING ABOUT MY THOUGHTS

I can’t say how I actually felt when the facilitator asked if we practiced the case we had for the day, and we should try to score ourselves by following how she’ll analyze the case, the case was “The Future of BioPasteur”. I’d thought I did the right thing, I took my time to watch the recording of our last class which we treated a case together, I followed every bit of it and played back any part I didn’t get word for word, after a while I was ready to go face the case with full confidence.

I read the case at first and took brief notes of some important information from the reading, I had to go again; this time with prior knowledge about the case and what I’m expected to pay more attention to. I read carefully and took note of dates, figures, estimates, various characters and their individual opinion, the facts established in the reading, speculations and what were assumed. A quick one on the company background; Biopasteur is a biotech company founded by Jeff Thompson, Arnold Hand, and Professor Amy Waitz. They produced a blood pressure drug LOBLOPRIN in 2006 which was widely accepted and certified effective for its purpose. They embark on developing a new drug DIASTOP, with the hope to help cure type 1 and type 2 diabetes and to have major advantage over alternative drugs. In January 2011, they were faced with the most important decision they’ve had since founding BioPasteur, which is to either release DIASTOP to the market now, or take it back to the laboratory for further development.  

I concluded, the product should be introduced now and the company setup a research team to keep working on a developed version, keeping in mind the lapses of the current state of the product, feedback can also be gotten from the general populace as regard the side effects noticed during the testing stages. I thought since FDA asked for an additional test before getting the approval for the drug, the chance of a recall is slim. I thought about the estimated profit the company will be making from the product yearly(about $70million), and a lesser amount of about $12 million yearly would be spent on research and development, that shouldn’t be a problem and this extra cost for research and development won’t be financed by the profit generated from the other products of the company.

 I thought I was right, only to join the class and we analyzed the case, I realized I missed out on the main aim and motive the company had while setting out to produce DIASTOP, they aimed at producing a better product than what was already existing in the market to cure type  1 and type 2 diabetes. Obviously, the high demand and pressure for the product to be released now, is because people trust the company to give them the same level of efficiency in the cure for diabetes as they were able to achieve with LOBLOPRIN in the cure for blood pressure. If DIASTOP is released now and it’s not better off than the existing diabetes medication in the market, the company’s reputation is at risk. And the estimated profit would not be achieved as the product will be faced with direct competition from the existing products in the market.   

After the class session, I had to think through and I kept telling myself; never again will I not consider every possibility and outcome while analyzing a case. We’ve analyzed several cases afterwards, but I don’t think I have one direct answer anymore, I’m really stuck with my thoughts right now, and all I’ve been doing is thinking about my thoughts over and over again.