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The Impact of Failure and Success

  • 1.  The Impact of Failure and Success

    Posted 04-17-2021 11:41
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    I found the article, "The Impact of Failure and Success Experience on Drug Development" by Antonio Garzón-Vico, Jan Rosier, Patrick Gibbons, and Peter McNamara, to be extremely interesting and content-rich. The authors use logistic regression analysis to model the degree of probability of whether drug development will result in failure or success. Their study takes place within the biotech industry, with the data being obtained from Pharma Projects. The authors view the failures of new product development (NPD) at all levels; the early stages (phase I), medium stages (phase II), and the late stages (phase III). They conclude that experiencing late-stage failures improves future NPD, that experiencing success is more beneficial than late-stage failures, and that the related success experiences of others will decrease the likelihood of failure.

    The study focuses on the drug, torcetrapib, that was created by Pfizer. In phase III, it was discovered, during clinical trials, that torcetraphib increased the risk of heart problems and even death. Even though Pfizer had already exhausted a lot of funds, investing in the development of the cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP), Pfizer had to cut its losses and stop the development of the drug. Pfizer's competitors noticed this late-stage failure and made the appropriate adjustments; some competitors ended their CETP programs completely, while others improved their CETP programs and slowed down development to research and understand CETP biology to a greater degree, as to not make the same mistake as Pfizer.

    I believe that this article connects to marketing strategies in many ways, and has several points for possible discussion. However, the one matter I would like to address and relate to marketing, is this idea that other companies can learn from the success and failure of others. As of recent, I have really been interested in observing the effects of poor marketing decisions, especially decisions concerning brand management. It surprises me that we still see companies making small marketing mistakes, especially when similar mistakes have already occurred with other companies.

    The article states that there is not a sure consensus that companies benefit more from their own failures or from the failures of other companies. However, the study makes it clear that companies are paying attention to the success and failure of other organizations. This is something I would highly recommend companies start practicing; it would be in a company's best interest to research the history of marketing mistakes, and successes, of other companies who operate within the same or similar business environments and industries. Once a company observes where other companies have gone right or wrong, they can work to optimize their own marketing strategies by either keeping things as is, making revisions to their current processes and methods, or by ending their current advertising campaigns and starting anew.

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    Daniel Reed
    Oakland University
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