Carl Rausch Dilemma

Objective:

Carl Rausch dilemma, when to launch the Hemopure and Oxyglobin in the market.

Background:

According to the Ted Jacobs, Vice president of the Bio pure corporation the launch of the Oxyglobin should be delayed until after Hemopure has been approved and establish itself in the market place.

As both the product are physically identical and possess almost the same properties, Launch of the Oxyglobin first will create a false expectation among the consumer about the low cost of the Hemopure also. It will be hard for the corporation to explain such variance in the price of both the products which looks so similar.

Product:

Oxyglobin and Hemopure were Biopure’s entries in the field of blood substitutes, Hemopure targeting the Human Market and Oxyglobin, the animal market.

Price:

For every Oxyglobin unit the Biopure Corporation can maximum get 150$ per unit. While on the other hand the human market is expansive and demanding. It will incur high profit for the company. The cost of the Hemopure per unit will be 600-800 $.

Promotion:

Manufacturer will provide a series of training to distributor representatives about the product. The distributor representative will give a 15 minutes visit to the Veterinary practice each week. Biopure will also use trade shows and trade publication as a mean to discuss about the product feature in more detail.

Distribution:

Biopure will contract national, regional and local distributor to sold their product.

Customer:

Oxyglobin is for the veterinary market and Hemopure is for the human market.

Company:

Biopure was a biopharmaceutical firm. It was one of the three legitimate contenders in the field of Blood substitute.

Competition:

Baxter international and Northfield were the only other companies who were developing the hemoglobin based blood substitute.

Market Segments for Hemopure:

Hemopure will be used in military and nonmilitary use. It will be used extensively during the open heart surgery, organ transplant and in many other accident cases which have risen significantly.

Value of the Hemopure:
Human market is large and can realistically achieve the target cost of 600-800$ per unit. Given the low rate of blood donation and relatively short shelf life of the RBCs , Hemopure will be in great demand across all the hospitals. Moreover due to transmission of disease during the blood transfusion, Hemopure will be used because it is free of infectious agents.

Reasonable Estimate of Hemopure and Similar Products:

As 2.7 Million unit of RBCs were discarded due to contamination or expiration, these would be the certain unit which the Blood substitute can replace. Moreover as chronic anemia in USA will remain stable, acute blood loss is expected to be increase in the coming years with the increase of US aging population.