QUESTION 1: What factors should the team consider when evaluating whether OldPharma should acquire BioFuture?
Helpful Hints
- Take time to organize your thoughts before answering. This tells the interviewer that you think about the problem in a logical way
- Develop overall approach before diving into details
Reveal answer
A good answer would include the following:
Value of BioFuture’s drug pipeline. Number of drugs currently in development. Quality of drugs (likelihood of success). Potential revenues and profits.
Biofuture’s R&D capabilities (future drug pipeline). Scientific talent. Intellectual property (e.g., patents, proprietary processes or “know-how” for biologicals research). Buildings, equipment and other items that allow Biofuture’s R&D to operate.
BioFuture’s marketing or sales capabilities. Especially how promotional messages will be delivered, e.g., relationships with key opinion leaders that can promote biologicals; Key opinion leaders can come from the academic arena, like prominent medical school professors, or from the public arena, like heads of regulatory bodies or prominent telejournalists.
Acquisition price.
A very good answer might also include multiple additional key factors OldPharma should consider. For example:
BioFuture’s existing partnerships or other relationships with pharmacos.
OldPharma’s capability gaps in biologicals, R&D, sales and marketing, etc.
OldPharma’s alternatives to this acquisition. Alternative companies OldPharma could acquire. Other strategies for entering biological segment, e.g., enter partnerships rather than acquisition. Pursuing other strategies than entering the biological segment.