Submitted by: Submitted by cmajorsky
Views: 10
Words: 392
Pages: 2
Category: Business and Industry
Date Submitted: 10/25/2015 02:43 PM
Background of Market: AIDS can be traced back to a blood sample taken and stored in the Central African country of Zaire in 1959. It wasn’t until 1982 that AIDS was labeled a disease and is determined to be spread through a virus in bodily fluids such as blood and semen. The following year, Scientists at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France, isolated a suspected AIDS-causing virus. U. S. researchers identified an AIDS causing virus, in 1984, as the same one as the French scientists. The virus was then named HIV. HIV can become extra link in DNA of cell. It inhibits and eventually destroys the T-4 cell which is a key part of the immune system that attacks foreign germs in the body.
AIDS cases increased by almost 6 times from 5,992 in 1984 to 35,198 in 1989. It was estimated that in 1990, 800,000 to 1,300,000 Americans were infected with HIV. Due to the development of treatments, the fatality rate of AIDS decreased from 91% in 1981 to 46% in 1989. Treating AIDS patients was proven to be extremely expensive. Estimated lifetime medical costs of an AIDS patient in their 30s was between $70,000 to $141,000 compared to digestive tract cancer costing $47,000, leukemia costing $29,000 and a heart attack costing $67,000.
Company Conditions: BW is the US subsidiary of Wellcome PLC which is headquartered London. They are a multinational pharmaceutical firm that operates in 18 countries. They employ 20,000 people of which 18% engage in research and development of their products. Total revenues for 1989 were $2.1 billion. The financial ratios for the company in 1989 were 70.6% for gross profit margin, 13.4% for R&D expenditures and 36.9% for selling, general and administrative costs. North America represents the largest market for Wellcome PLC’s products, with annual sales of $997 million. Sales in the United States are about 42% of Wellcome PLC’s worldwide sales. Human health care products, both ethical (prescription) and non ethical (over the counter), account for...