NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence) reviews the cost effectiveness of medicines for the treatment of multiple sclerosis (annual cost per patient €10,000-18,000) and does not authorize their use within the UK National Health Service. However, an agreement between the manufacturers and the Department of Health is reached on an innovative risk sharing scheme.

In July 1996, the French social security governmental agency (the CNAM) sent a letter to all doctors urging them to prescribe generic amoxicillin instead of Clamoxyl, SmithKline Beecham’s (SB) blockbuster antibiotic.

The B case (Augmentin in 2002) shows that GSK (the company formed by the merger of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham) now faces the same options for Augmentin, another blockbuster antibiotic. Should they use the strategy that was so successful for Clamoxyl or have the market conditions changed so much that a whole different approach should followed?

The cases describe the development, worldwide launch, and subsequent marketing of a new pharmaceutical product which, although it represented only a slight improvement over the category pioneer, not only became the leading product in its category, but the largest prescription pharmaceutical product overall worldwide.

The cases describe the development, worldwide launch, and subsequent marketing of a new pharmaceutical product which, although it represented only a slight improvement over the category pioneer, not only became the leading product in its category, but the largest prescription pharmaceutical product overall worldwide.