Stakeholders Assignment: Innovation Of Exubera

Question

Task: Write a stakeholders assignment defining your invention in regards to the core innovation of Exubera.

Answer

Core innovation and product as a whole:
As the core innovation regarding Exubera, it can be seen in this stakeholders assignment that the brand tried to make the consumption of the insulin simple. There are many alternative forms of insulin consumption, for instance, injection, oral consumption; however, injection or oral consumption is not always possible and simple. Thus, the brand basically tried to make inhaler than can provide insulin to the consumer through air. As the motive of the producing new product, idea of making the insulin consumption simple worked broadly. As people can inhale easily and no

Market structure of Exubera and stakeholders:
Inhaled insulin product market has five major competitors in the market excluding Exubera, which are Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Mankind, Abbott Diabetes and B&O Medicom. Considering the same, it can be stated that the market is oligopoly in nature, where the products are almost same, however, product differentiation is present leading to uniqueness in each product. Underpinning the same, it can be stated that there are two different types of stakeholders, who are external and internal (Healthline 2020). As the internal stakeholders, Research and Development team, Marketing team, Management team, board of directors can be considered. On the other hand, as the external stakeholders, doctors, patients, government and drug agency can be considered. Though the internal stakeholders do not have much hold in case of failure of the product, however, they have played essential role in developing first of its kind product, which is inhaled insulin. However, in this case of stakeholders assignment, external stakeholders, like doctors and patients has played a crucial role in case of failure of the product as a whole.

Competitors and competitive analysis:
Inhaled insulin product market has five major competitors in the market excluding Exubera, which are Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Mankind, Abbott Diabetes and B&O Medicom. Eli Lilly is working on its AIR product through joint venture with Alkermes and it was submitted to FDA for analysis in 2009. On the other hand, it is also stated in this stakeholders assignment that Novo Nordisk is in last stage of the testing with AERx for its inhaled insulin. Mankind is also is in last stage of testing, whereas, Abbott has purchased technology from Kos and upgrading the same in order to produce their own inhaled insulin. B&O on the other hand few steps away from its production, which is Insulair.

Considering the finding by Nytimes.com (2020) within this stakeholders assignment, Mankind, Abbott diabetes and B&O are such brands, which has not yet produced their insulin inhaler, however, their products till now has been preferred by the doctors and the patients due to their lower cost and smaller size, which is one of the major factors of failure for the Exubera. Thus, from the above analysis table provided within this stakeholders assignment it can be seen that though Exubera has introduced the idea of insulin inhaler first, yet it has failed to influence the market.

Reason of failure:
Exubera has failed due to various reason in spite of the fact that there is Januvia from the same brand which is prescribed and preferred by both the patient and the doctor for consumption. Major reasons of the failure are discussed in the next section of stakeholders assignment:

1. First major issue of the Exubera is the fact that the inhaler size is too large to carry; it is almost sized almost as a tennis ball. Thus, users face it hard to carry.
2. Secondly, cost of the inhaler is higher than the injectable insulin. For instance, cost of Exubera is 5$ per day, whereas, for the injectable insulin it is 2$ to 3$.
3. Thirdly, as per the doctors, only 10% of the insulin inhaled mixes with the blood, whereas, remaining 90% is left in lungs. Though the long-term impact of the same is not known on the lungs, however, it is expected that the lungs will be impacted by the additional insulin kept in its without going into the blood.
4. Fourthly, there is alternative available to the patients and the alternative are pocket friendly too. Moreover, the new injections are not as painful as it was decades ago. Thus, patients prefer to have the same, rather than trying the new one. Thus, consumer preference factor also not in favour of the Exubera.
5. Marketing effort of the Exubera is not optimal as it did not reach to the consumer directly, rather tried to influence the doctors to prescribe the same. Thus, marketing gap has influenced the sales of the Exubera.
6. Using of the inhaler-based insulin is complex process as the patient need to pump it repeatedly before inhaling the insulin. Moreover, different version of Exubera makes it more complex for the patient to choose, and situation become further complex for the patient who need converting doses.

These reasons presented in the above context of stakeholders assignment, lead to failure of the product, where nor the doctors neither the patients were influenced by the output from Exubera.

The invention in regards to the core innovation and the product as a whole:
It is seen in this stakeholders assignment that Tuberculosis is a serious disease that kills many people across the world. For diagnosing TB, many methods are used for clinical purposes. However, each of them has some limitations and hence failed to achieve the main goal. For reducing the time-related issue and the problem of specimen collection, medical science tries to improve some improved methods of diagnosis. In various times, a combination of different biomarkers has been obtained with different types of specificity and sensitivity. In this context of stakeholders assignment, the innovation of a new test kit for diagnosing TB is very crucial for Immunetech (Drain et al. 2016). The start-up biological company intends to focus on the novel and rapid test for the Tuberculosis diseases and hence it develops the LAM PoCT kit, which is available at anytime and anywhere. The mission of the company for producing this product is to develop the procedures of point-of-care multifunctional testing at a standard level. With the help of this kit, patients can test themselves at home and can get the result within a few hours.

The market definition and identification of stakeholders:
The market for the LAM PoCT kit is almost competitive as different companies have produced and supplied testing kits for TB. Herein stakeholders assignment, each type of testing kit has different combinations of biomarkers for different levels of sensitivity and specificity through the ultimate focus of these kits is to test TB among patients. New firms can easily enter into the market for producing and selling their developed testing kits under government rules and regulations. Thus, it can be said herein stakeholders assignment that the market follows monopolistic competition where both the number of buyers and sellers is large and where products are close substitutes to each other (Bekken et al. 2020). The stakeholders of Immunitech ate TB patients, medical experts and health workers that play a significant role in developing, demanding and utilizing the testing kit in the market. By selecting appropriate stakeholders, the company can sustain the competitive market successfully.

The overview of competitors and competitive analysis:
The main competitors of LAM PoCT kit are Gene-Xpert assay and Xpert MTB/RIF assay, developed by Cepheid, the polymerase chain reaction, or PCR test, developed by Kary Mullis among many. Competitive analysis of LAM PoCT kit against Gene-Xpert assay and Xpert MTB/RIF assay and PCR test has been developed in the following table provided in the stakeholders assignment to understand advantages and limitations of the companies:

The impact of 2 major stakeholders that have a significant impact on the purchase and success of the product:
For the success of the LAM PoCT kit, the impact of 2 major stakeholders, which are patients and medical experts can be taken under consideration. Patients are the main external stakeholder of the product and they can influence the demand for the product in the market. If patients do not find the testing kit as user-friendly then they may not intend to purchase it at comparatively higher prices (McNulty et al. 2017). Moreover, the incorrect outcome may also distract patients from using this kit for testing TB. Thus, to overcome these issues illustrated in this stakeholders assignment, the company needs to give focus on its weaknesses and coming threats for solving the problem.

The second major stakeholder is medical experts, who are the employees in the Immunitech company. Those experts develop and test the testing kits before supplying this in the market and before selling it to the target customers. Thus, they are the important internal stakeholders on which the quality of the product depends entirely. Hence, it is essential for the company to identify the correct stakeholders to achieve success in the business. Hence, the findings of the stakeholders assignment signifies that the company needs to take the correct method of market evaluation for these two major stakeholders.

What is the method of market evaluation for the stakeholders identified within this stakeholders assignment?
For patients, the company may perform a free campaigning strategy as well as STP (segmentation, targeting and positioning) strategy. Immunitech can make a tie-up with doctors and healthcare institutions for promoting the product to target customers. Doctors can prescribe the test kit to patients for testing TB at their homes (Mena et al. 2019). To understand the problem of customers at the time of using the LAM PoCT kit, medical experts of the company can make a direct conversation with users. As examined in the stakeholders assignment, this process will help them to detect the problems that patients face and the way to solve these. The main motive of the company will be to provide customer satisfaction.

In the case of medical experts, the company will perform market research for understanding the basic requirements of the company. Medical experts can conduct market surveys and interviews for collecting primary data from patients and doctors. The process would not help the company to achieve an effective business plan that can work further successfully (Nelis et al. 2019). The medical experts can also understand the required changes that they need to do in their products by interacting with doctors, who have specialisation in this field. This will also guide them to make the product most efficient and appropriate for TB patients.

Any changes regarding the product and reason:
 As per the internal analysis of the product done within this stakeholders assignment, it is seen that the product has higher costs compared to other diagnostic tests. However, it would be beneficial for the company if it reduces the price of the products or charges different prices in different target markets for attracting customers from different income groups. Moreover, the experts need to improve the quality of the product so that patients can get an accurate outcome like lab-result at their home. Otherwise, the incorrect result could mislead them towards to wrong treatment.

References:
Bekken, G.K., Ritz, C., Selvam, S., Jesuraj, N., Hesseling, A.C., Doherty, T.M., Grewal, H.M., Vaz, M. and Jenum, S., 2020. Identification of subclinical tuberculosis in household contacts using exposure scores and contact investigations. Stakeholders assignment BMC Infectious Diseases, 20(1), p.96.

Drain, P.K., Gounder, L., Sahid, F. and Moosa, M.Y.S., 2016. Rapid urine LAM testing improves diagnosis of expectorated smear-negative pulmonary tuberculosis in an HIV-endemic region. Scientific reports, 6, p.19992.

Healthline. (2020). Exubera and Pfizer: What Went Wrong with the Inhaler?. [online] Available at: https://www.healthline.com/diabetesmine/exubera-goes-ph#4 [Accessed 24 May 2020].

Jagodzinski, L.L., Manak, M.M., Hack, H.R., Liu, Y. and Peel, S.A., 2020. Performance evaluation of a laboratory developed PCR test for quantitation of HIV-2 viral RNA. Plos one, 15(2), p.e0229424.

Magar, S.T., Ghimire, G. and Shah, P.K., 2019. Comparison of Led Fluorescent Microscopy and the Gene Xpert MTB/RIF Assay in Diagnosis of Pulmonary and Extrapulmonary Tuberculosis. Stakeholders assignment Tribhuvan University Journal of Microbiology, 6, pp.127-132.

McNulty, C., Ricketts, E.J., Fredlund, H., Uusküla, A., Town, K., Rugman, C., Tisler-Sala, A., Mani, A., Dunais, B., Folkard, K. and Allison, R., 2017. Qualitative interviews with healthcare staff in four European countries to inform adaptation of an intervention to increase chlamydia testing. BMJ open, 7(9), p.e017528.

Mena, J.A., Hult, G.T.M., Ferrell, O.C. and Zhang, Y., 2019. Competing assessments of market-driven, sustainability-centered, and stakeholder-focused approaches to the customer-brand relationships and performance. Journal of Business Research, 95, pp.531-543.

Nelis, J.L.D., Tsagkaris, A.S., Zhao, Y., Lou-Franco, J., Nolan, P., Zhou, H., Cao, C., Rafferty, K., Hajslova, J., Elliott, C.T. and Campbell, K., 2019. The end user sensor tree: An end-user friendly sensor database. Biosensors and Bioelectronics, 130, pp.245-253.

Nytimes.com. (2020). The drug Exubera looks like an expensive flop for Pfizer. Stakeholders assignment [online] Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/10/business/worldbusiness/10iht-pfizer.1.5210947.html [Accessed 24 May 2020].