Biopure Case Study

• Capacity would not increase significantly; it would increase by 20,000 immediately, and could be brought up to 48,000 in twelve months

space lease or purchase, raw materials, labor costs, etc. Provide a rationale for your estimates.

With the human blood substitutes, the first mover will have a big advantage. Biopure has a big advantage over its competitors with regards to the cost of basic constitutent( $8 & $26 vis a vis $1.5 for Biopure). Further, the products of both the competitors needs to be frozen whereas Biopure is stable at room temperature.

Erik Peterson was hired as the Product Manager in charge of sales and marketing of Biometra’s catheter, shortly after completing his MBA. Due to sudden resignation of the Vice President of peripheral and vascular devices as well

Despite the fact that Baxter International launched the first human blood substitute, HemAssist (presumably priced between $600 and $800), Baxter International’s and Northfield Laboratories’ blood substitutes rely on outdated human blood as a source of hemoglobin which is more

This is beyond the company cost limit set of $16 million capital and $2.6 million yearly payment for improvement. The company is committed to keep the plant but at the basis on the cost limit set.

Biopure Corporation was founded in 1984 by Carl Rausch and David Judelson and quickly became one of three legitimate contenders in the emerging field of blood substitutes. The primary goal of Biopure was to develop a human blood substitute that replicates the oxygen carrying function of blood without the limitations of blood donations. After many years of research and development and over $200 million dollars invested, Biopure had developed two blood substitutes. Hemopure was the human blood substitute and Oxyglobin was created for the animal market. In 1998, Oxyglobin received FDA approval for commercial launch of the product but Hemopure was still 1-2 years away. The approval of Oxyglobin left Biopure the difficult decision on releasing

Strengths: Ability to gain donations at a fast pace, available in 175 countries, supplies blood to 30,000 hospitals, recognized organization worldwide.

$1.6 billion / 466 thousand tpy = $3,433 (cost of capital per ton of capacity)

Each sample was tested before it was shipped. He took every possible measure to avoid poor handling and contamination of blood plasma. He closely monitored the shipments of these life-saving plasmas to treat war casualties. For five months, “Blood for Britain” project ran successfully with approximately 15000 people turning donors and approximately 5,000 vials of blood plasma collected.

Full capacity of the factory (900,000 tons) is expected to reach in 2003 so this domestic production could reduce trade import more than US$ 50 million every year (exhibit 8).

In 1998, Biopure Corporation is one of the three legitimate contenders in the emerging field of “blood substitutes”. Biopure has invested $200M on the R&D on blood substitutes in the past with its primary goal being the development of a human blood substitute ( Hemopure) but Its entry into animal market (Oxyglobin) had been some

it can be drawn that production volume is high as it has increased 600% since the buying of new large multi-cavity moulds and machinery. Another indication of

Strategic Choices prevails in many companies’ setting to progress towards betterment. Somehow it comes with benefits and opportunity costs as well. Based on the case study for this week, Biocon India, a pharmaceutical company in India, is being faced with a strategic choice to proliferate but as mentioned, it comes with costs. Today this essay will scrutinize this case in terms of the strategic choices availability, the key groups involved and their relationship, the risks and rewards for growing Biocon, the primary structure of Biocon, the threats for such a structure, and my recommendation to the company.

The market of human blood transfusions is broken down into different uses: Elective Surgery, Emergency Surgery and Trauma. However, Hemopure seems to be suitable only for trauma cases due to its characteristics and, again, high price. To understand the reason, it is important to notice that, actually, only 10% of the 500,000 trauma victims receives RBCs “in the field” or at the site of accident, and the remaining 95% of these people does not receive transfusions until they arrive at the hospital. This delay was often cited as a major factor to the 20,000 trauma deaths. Therefore, since the expected market share for Biopure is 25% and assuming that the total blood transfusions remain stable, the potential market size for Hemopure is approximately $350,000,000. This size is based on an average price of $700 multiplied by 2,000,000 units (around 4 blood units are needed for each Trauma case).