Case Article—Bayer New Drug Development Decision Making

Abstract

The interactive case study requires student teams to engage with the instructor using a structured decision analysis process in deciding whether to develop a new drug to treat blood clots in legs. There is role-playing in the interactive case study where student teams are decision consultants and the instructor serves as the decision maker, subject matter expert (SME), and coach. Student teams are responsible for managing the analytical process, framing the decision, collecting data from the SME (instructor), constructing the Excel model, assessing probabilities for the most-sensitive uncertainties from the SME, evaluating the Excel-based decision-tree model, and presenting evaluation results and recommendations to the decision maker (instructor). The goal of the case is to improve the analytical, modeling, and consulting skills of the students. The interactive case study is the culmination of a semester-long elective MBA course, entitled Decision Making Under Uncertainty. Since 2010, I have taught this course 31 times to 870 graduate students.