Biogen is a successful biotech company facing a critical juncture. CEO John Mullen ponders how technological changes introduced into the research function will shape larger corporate decisions. This world in which biotechnology companies operated had changed dramatically over the past few years. Parts of biology were rapidly evolving from being an individualistic, wet lab, bench-science driven field toward one where scientists manipulated huge amounts of data and divided up research steps into a factorylike production process. At the same time, the cost of developing a drug and bringing it to market had ballooned, from an estimated $231 million in 1991 to $802 million in 2000. Biogen was conservative in adopting new genomics tools. This case describes how the company decided to bring in house the latest genomics in silico tools and applied them to the discovery and research phase for drug development. The company also then restructured its research strategy. As the new tools and early-phase research began to bear fruit, Mullen realized that they implied significant changes down the road for other parts of Biogen.

If you think the Internet has changed the shape of business, just imagine what genetic engineering is going to do. In this groundbreaking article, Juan Enriquez and Ray Goldberg explain how advances in genetics will not only have dramatic implications for people and society, they will reshape vast sectors of the world economy. The boundaries between many once-distinct businesses, from agribusiness and chemicals to pharmaceuticals and health care to energy and computing, will blur, and out of that convergence will emerge what promises to be the largest industry in the world: life science. And as scientific advances continue to accelerate, more and more businesses will be drawn, by choice or by necessity, into the life-science industry. Companies have realized that unlocking life's code opens up virtually unlimited commercial possibilities, but operating within this new industry presents a raft of wrenchingly difficult challenges as well. Companies must rethink their business, financial, and M&A strategies. They must make vast R&D investments with distant and uncertain payoffs. They must enter into complex partnerships and affiliations, sometimes with direct competitors. And perhaps most difficult, they must contend with a public that is uncomfortable with even the thought of genetic engineering. The optimal structure of the life-science industry--and of the companies that compose it--is as yet unknown. But the actions that executives take now will go a long way toward determining the ultimate role their companies play in the world's largest and most important industry.

A new firm is being created to speed up the process of mapping humans, animals, and plants by combining gene technology with rapid gene identification to improve the health and well being of the human population and the productivity of crops and animals. How does one manage this process?

BSE or Mad Cow Disease is symptomatic of a series of technology crises. This case deals with how governments, scientists, businessmen, farmers, and the media face very difficult issues under exteme pressure.

The objective is to reconcile the trade-offs involved in setting an agricultural policy in delicate ecological settings and determine the role business should play in an imperfectly competitive developing region.