Large Players Research Articles

Recipharm to acquire Consort Medical

Recipharm, a pharmaceutical services firm based in Stockholm, is buying Consort Medical, a British supplier of drug-delivery devices and manufacturing services, for about $650 million. The deal marks further consolidation among pharmaceutical contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMOs), a sector that in recent years has seen the rise of large players offering an end-to-end range of research and production services. Recipharm claims the acquisition will give it annual sales of more than $1 billion and put it among the top five CDMOs. The acquisition follows a period of aggressive dealmaking by both firms. Consort added active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) and finished-drug services to Bespak, its drug-delivery device business, in 2014 with the $370 million purchase of Aesica, a UK-based CDMO that helped pioneer the purchase of large plants from major drug companies. Recipharm also picked up big pharma assets in a slew of deals dating back to its purchase of

Indian API industry has the tide turned?

Over the past decade or so, API industry has lost out to Generics in attracting investments due to prevailing industry structure which favoured greater returns from Generics – faster growth and better margins among others. In the past three to five years, with Generics losing sheen with normalised margins and returns, API businesses are getting back onto investor radar. With inherent chemistry and engineering complexity, API manufacturing has the potential to create businesses protected by better moats. Another pain point of the API industry was Chinese exuberance in offering APIs at irrationally low prices, which eventually destroyed value for the entire industry as a whole. A slew of recent measures and events has established parity among all players – Chinese, Indian and European, with the anticipation that it should better industry wide performance. Indian API companies are well positioned to leverage the situation and improve their standing in the API industry. Financial markets have begun to recognise some of these players like Divis Laboratories, trading at market capitalisations comparable to generic companies with 10 times higher revenue. Besides large players like Divis, a bunch of upcoming Indian API suppliers led by MSN Labs have focused on developing a large number of niche, low competition APIs for supplying to the regulated markets. Such portfolio lends towards above industry average realisations and wider customer penetration. Besides public listing, API companies have been sought after targets for adjacent players in CDMO space, chemical companies, chemical distributors for forward/backward integration and creating additional revenue streams. A bunch of private equity players have already setup or in the process of setting up platforms to consolidation API companies, as we speak. For an investor, it is the key to understand the various business models and the key factors driving the choice of targets to ensure the strategy is well designed to succeed.

Corporate Innovation and Returns

Among U.S. public firms, technological innovation is concentrated in a small set of large players, with innovation “leaders” having considerably lower systematic risk than “laggards.” To understand this fact, we build a winner-takes-all patent-race model and show that a firm’s expected return decreases in its innovation output and increases in that of its rivals. Using a comprehensive firm-level panel of information on patenting activity by fields of technology in 1950-2010, we find strong support for the model’s predictions. Our results highlight that strategic interactions among firms competing in innovation are an important determinant of risk and expected returns.

Тенденции стратегического развития и направления инвестиционной деятельности телекоммуникационных компаний

The article discusses trends in the strategic development of telecommunication companies in Russia. The factors of the strategies formation of the largest market players that determine the main directions of their investment activity are highlighted. Following the analysis of the five largest players in the telecommunications market, nine areas of digital transformation were identified: Internet of Things, OTT Applications, Cloud Technologies, Financial Technologies, Electronic Commerce and Big Data. The analysis of the implementation of investment projects of Russian telecommunications companies in the framework of their strategic development was carried out. It was identified trends in the transition of companies to the level of competition of digital platforms and ecosystems. A forecast has been made regarding the segmentation of the future digital market in Russia. The prospects for the development and significance of the development of 5G networks in Russia are named.

Coordinated management of organic waste and derived products

We propose a coordination framework for managing urban and rural organic waste in a scalable manner by orchestrating waste exchange, transportation, and transformation into value-added products. The framework is inspired by coordinated management systems that are currently used to operate power grids across the world and that have been instrumental in achieving high levels of efficiency and technological innovation. In the proposed framework, suppliers and consumers of waste and derived products as well as transportation and technology providers bid into a coordination system that is operated by an independent system operator. Allocations and prices for waste and derived products are obtained by the operator by solving a dispatch problem that maximizes the social welfare and that balances supply and demand across a given geographical region. Coordination enables handling of complex constraints and interdependencies that arise from transportation and bio-physico-chemical transformations of waste into products. We prove that the coordination system delivers prices and product allocations that satisfy economic and efficiency properties of a competitive market. The framework is scalable in that it can provide open access that fosters transactions between small and large players in urban and rural areas and over wide geographical regions. Moreover, the framework provides a systematic approach to enable coordinated responses to externalities such as droughts and extreme weather events, to monetize environmental impacts and remediation, to achieve complex social goals such as geographical nutrient balancing, and to justify technology investment and development efforts. Furthermore, the framework can facilitate coordination with electrical, natural gas, water, transportation, and food distribution infrastructures.

Studying the evolution of content providers in IPv4 and IPv6 internet cores

There is recent evidence that the core of the Internet, which was formerly dominated by large transit providers, has been reshaped after the transition to a multimedia-oriented network, first by general-purpose CDNs and now by private CDNs. In this work we use k-cores, an element of graph theory, to define which ASes compose the core of the Internet and to track the evolution of the core since 1999. Specifically, we investigate whether large players in the Internet content and CDN ecosystem belong to the core and, if so, since when. In addition, we examine differences between the IPv4 and IPv6 cores. We further investigate regional differences in the evolution of large content providers. Finally, we show that the core of the Internet has incorporated an increasing number of content ASes in recent years. To enable reproducibility of this work, we provide a website to allow interactive analysis of our datasets to detect, for example, “up and coming” ASes using customized queries.

Strategic Behaviour in a Capacity Market? The New Irish Electricity Market Design

The transition to a low-carbon power system requires growing the share of generation from (intermittent) renewables while ensuring security of supply. Policymakers and economists increasingly see a capacity mechanism as a way to deal with this challenge. Yet this raises new concerns about the exercise of market power by large players via the capacity auction. We present a new modelling approach that captures such strategic behaviour together with a set of ex ante empirical estimates for the new Irish electricity market design (I-SEM)—in which a single firm controls 44% of generation capacity (excluding wind). We find significant costs of strategic behaviour, even with new entry: In our baseline scenarios, procurement costs in the capacity auction are around 150-400 million EUR (or 40-100%) above the competitive least-cost solution. From a policy perspective, we also examine how market power can be measured and mitigated through auction design.

Granular Instrumental Variables

We propose a new way to construct instruments in a broad class of economic environments: “granular instrumental variables” (GIVs). In the economies we study, a few large firms, in- dustries or countries account for an important share of economic activity. As the idiosyncratic shocks from these large players affect aggregate outcomes, they are valid and often powerful instruments. We provide a methodology to extract idiosyncratic shocks from the data in order to create GIVs, which are size-weighted sums of idiosyncratic shocks. These GIVs allow us to then estimate parameters of interest, including causal elasticities and multipliers.We first illustrate the idea in a basic supply and demand framework: we achieve a novel identification of both supply and demand elasticities based on idiosyncratic shocks to either supply or demand. We then show how the procedure can be enriched to work in many sit- uations. We provide illustrations of the procedure with two applications. First, we measure how “sovereign yield shocks” transmit across countries in the Eurozone. Second, we estimate short-term supply and demand multipliers and elasticities in the oil market. Our estimates match existing ones that use more complex and labor-intensive (e.g., narrative) methods. We sketch how GIVs could be useful to estimate a host of other causal parameters in economics. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

3580 What percent of unnecessary ED visits for chronic conditions can be reduced by extant telemedicine devices?

OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: This study will elucidate what percent of unnecessary ED visits for chronic conditions can be reduced by extant telemedicine devices, and which telemedicine devices can yield the greatest reduction in unnecessary ED visits for chronic conditions. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: We intend to use the Nationwide Emergency Department Sample (NEDS) to estimate the percent of ED visits, with a chronic condition as the principal diagnosis, were only evaluation and management services were rendered. The NEDS is the largest publicly available, all-payer ED database, providing national estimates of ED visits. The NEDS contains information on patient demographics, principal diagnosis (captured by ICD-9-CM codes and defined as the main reason for bringing the patient to the hospital), and procedure codes using Current Procedural Terminology, Fourth Edition (CPT-4). Patients with a chronic condition will be identified using Chronic Condition Indicator developed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and, from them, patients who only received “evaluation and management” services will be extracted using the CPT-4 codes 99281–99283 and G0380–G0383. Then using our previously developed database, wherein FDA-approved OTC medical devices were allied to chronic conditions by applying the transitive property of equality between telemedicine devices – measurement and measurement – conditions pairs, we will elucidate what percent of unnecessary ED visits for chronic conditions which can be reduced by extant telemedicine devices. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: We anticipate multiple OTC telemedicine devices will be necessary to evaluate and manage common principal conditions. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: Telemedicine is seen as a potentially powerful tool for improving healthcare and reducing cost. UnitedHealthcare, the largest US insurance provider, has partnered with Doctors on Demand, the largest players in the telemedicine app space, and other app-based telemedicine services to provide on-demand access to physicians. However, to reach the full potential of telemedicine, and more specifically towards reducing unnecessary ED visits for chronic conditions, telemedicine services need to include capabilities that will allow for the evaluation and management of chronic conditions. This study is a pragmatic first step towards understanding what telemedicine devices would best augment existing telemedicine services to reduce unnecessary ED utilization.

SELECTING CORPORATE FIRMS FOR COLLABORATIVE INNOVATION: ENTREPRENEURIAL DECISION MAKING IN ASYMMETRIC PARTNERSHIPS

Large companies increasingly look for collaborations with new ventures to accelerate their innovation process, and researchers stress the potential of such partnerships to develop innovations. But when are entrepreneurs willing to engage in a partnership with a larger player? We seek to understand when founders of new ventures are willing to engage in such asymmetric partnerships through consideration of the characteristics of the entrepreneurial decision maker and the perceived attributes of the larger counterpart. The results of a conjoint experiment with 115 startup entrepreneurs suggest that among the partner selection criteria a high level of openness on the part of the large corporate company and concise contractual design signal trustworthiness to entrepreneurs, which has a positive impact on their willingness to engage in collaborative innovation. Our study also suggests that entrepreneurs’ self-efficacy reduces the willingness to partner and the positive impact of concise contractual designs. The results have implications for the self-concept and design of innovation and partner management of large firms, and for entrepreneurs who consider asymmetric partnerships a growth opportunity.

Cost Drivers for Food Retailers in Developed and Emerging Markets

The subject of research is a set of methodological and practical aspects of assessing the cost factors of food companies. The study of the above factors is becoming relevant under the current conditions of environment instability and the necessity to stimulate investment, given the low elasticity of demand for products in this sector. The purpose of the research was to confirm the hypothesis of a variety of cost drivers that form the financial result of companies in a developed and emerging markets by an example of 39 food retailers in an emerging market and 48 companies in developed markets based on a system approach and the comparison method using elements of factor and correlationand-regression analysis. The research findings obtained are as follows: the choice of indicators for the regression analysis of cost factors mostly of a multiplicative type is substantiated; the research was carried out using the indicator of financial result less the tangible assets depreciation; to clarify the results of the research, the elements of the comparative analysis were applied, with the companies classified into four groups where Lenta and X5 were in the group of the most efficient companies of the first quantile, and Dixie fell into the group of the fourth quantile companies that had difficulty in generating their own funds; the cost drivers of food retailers in emerging and developed markets were identified. It is concluded that the cost driver of food retailers in developed markets is profitability of sales, and in emerging markets it is the share of capital inputs in sales revenues. It has been established that the growth rate of consumer consumption plays a key role in the retail market of all countries. At the same time, there is a market tendency to oust small companies by large players whose assets have a higher level of investment demand. The novelty of the research lies in using by the authors the EBITA profitability indicator in the regression model, where EBITA is the profit before tax, interest and intangible assets depreciation.

E&P Notes (December 2018)

E&P Notes Company Fracturing First UK Horizontal Shale Wells Matt Zborowski, Technology Writer Hydraulic fracturing of the UK’s first two horizontal shale wells is under way. However, injection work has been paused on multiple occasions because of seismic activity. Cuadrilla Resources began fracturing the first well in mid-October at its Preston New Road site in Lancashire. Gas began flowing to the surface in early November. Both wells, which intersect the Bowland Shale, are slated to be completed over 3 months, with their flow rates tested over 6 months. An initial assessment on recoverable gas is expected in next year’s first quarter, at which point Cuadrilla will determine the site’s commerciality. BHGE To Buy Stake in ADNOC Drilling as Firms Form UAE Partnership Matt Zborowski, Technology Writer Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and Baker Hughes, a GE company (BHGE), will partner to turn ADNOC Drilling into “a fully-integrated drilling and well construction provider,” the companies said in a joint statement. The deal calls for BHGE to buy a 5% interest in ADNOC Drilling for $550 million, placing the subsidiary’s value at $11 billion including $1 billion of net debt. BHGE will join ADNOC Drilling’s board of directors, and the two firms will create an advisory board to jointly oversee the partnership’s implementation and ongoing operations. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter. Eni, BP To Team in Hopes of Boosting Libyan Oil and Gas Exploration Matt Zborowski, Technology Writer Eni, BP, and Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) inked an agreement on 8 October that should enable Eni to buy a 42.5% stake and become operator of three of BP’s Libyan oil exploration contract areas, where the companies plan to resume exploration work next year. BP’s 54,000-sq-km exploration- and production-sharing agreement (EPSA) consists of two onshore contract areas, A and B, in the Ghadames Basin and one offshore area, C, in the Sirt Basin. BP currently holds an 85% interest in the EPSA, with the Libyan Investment Authority holding the remaining 15%. Eni and NOC jointly have other operations and infrastructure near the onshore areas. Petrobras, Murphy Oil Form 75,000-BOE/D US Gulf Partnership Matt Zborowski, Technology Writer Brazil’s state-owned Petrobras and El Dorado, Arkansas-based Murphy Oil have agreed to combine most of their US Gulf of Mexico assets to form a joint venture (JV) that will average 75,000 BOE/D in production during the fourth quarter. Murphy Exploration & Production will serve as the JV’s operator with an 80% stake, while Petrobras America will hold 20%. The combine will have the following assets: Operated deepwater fields: Cascade, Chinook, Clipper, Dalmatian, Front Runner, Medusa, and Thunder Hawk Nonoperated deepwater fields: St. Malo, Lucius and Hadrian North, Hadrian South, Cottonwood, Habanero, and Kodiak Shallow-water fields: South Marsh Island 280, Garden Banks 200/201, and Tahoe Merger of Ensco and Rowan Jacks Up Their Market Share Stephen Rassenfoss, JPT Emerging Technology Senior Editor Ensco has acquired Rowan, continuing the run of major acquisitions by the biggest offshore contract drillers at a time when the outlook for the business is starting to look up. The combined company will be the largest player in the jackup sector, according to Wood Mackenzie, with rigs working on six continents. More than 60% of the 82 rigs in the fleet will be jackups, and Rowan also adds a growing joint venture with the largest jackup customer in the world, Saudi Aramco, according to the announcement. Ensco will be offering 2.215 shares of its stock for every share of Rowan, or about $2.4 billion. This will create a new company in which Ensco shareholders will hold more than 60% of the shares, with Rowan’s shareholders holding the balance, and the top four executive positions evenly split.

Corporate social responsibility of financial sector institutions in the light of sustainable development goals financing: the role of banks and stock exchanges

Significant gap in investment resources for financing Sustainable Development Goals can be overcome with the revitalization of the corporate social responsibility mechanism of the financial sector institutions, for example banks and stock exchanges as the largest players in the global financial sector. The most relevant for them are Goals 1, 5, 8, 10, 13, 17. Incorporating these goals into activities of the financial sector institutions requires not only the activation of their CSR mechanism in the directions indicated by the targets, but also the radical restructuring of all business processes and the reorientation of their overall sustainability strategy. Analysis of current sustainability reporting disclosure by financial sector institutions in global and regional aspects was conducted. Based on the analysis, the authors define the role of CSRs of banks and stock exchanges in SDG financing as follows: banks – ensuring their own sustainability and efficiency through CSR mechanisms, formation of new tools, methods and technologies of financial support of SDG; stock exchanges – minimization of information asymmetry in investor decision making, taking into consideration ESG criteria, formation of exemplary disclosure practices and new markets and market benchmarks by listing companies.

What’s integration got to do with it? Observations and lessons from the Franciscus Gasthuis & Vlietland Study Trip to North-West London

Introduction and description: In line with global developments, Franciscus Gasthuis & Vlietland works on concepts as triple aim, integrated care, person-centered care etc.. To achieve a more common approach in the area, Franciscus Gasthuis & Vlietland organized an exploratory study trip to London with medical specialists and general practitioners. The theme was ‘Crossing borders’, literally from The Netherlands to the United Kingdom and figuratively move forward in integrated care. To create a joint starting point, participants were asked to prepare properly by exploring the theory of Integrated Care and identify their own activities and competencies in this context. The study trip was arranged in cooperation with the IFIC. We learned more about the competencies, cultures and values for integrated care and went on an inspiring site visit. We discussed what was needed to move forward; who do we need to get on board? What are the next steps: this week, in 3, 6 and 12 months? Aim and theory of change: The connection and collaboration ‘hospital – GP’ and ‘GP- community’ works well. However, the triangle ‘hospital, GP and community’ is missing. We need an ‘integrator’[1] with a mission to connect this triangle. Targeted population and stakeholders Organizational links are our first focus. Next, we need to involve other care partners, patients, local municipalities and the community. Timeline: In order to take the next steps discussed in London, we worked with two focus groups on the theme of integrated care. The focus group consisted of a representation of the “London group”. We now have to decide how to move forward in 2018 and integrate the ongoing initiatives. Highlights: The most important outcomes for our situation, on the short term, are: - building trust and commitment; - better coordination of the already existing initiatives; - create a regional vision; - start with a subregional agenda about cooperation and care at the right place; - create a structure through which we keep on encouraging each other. Comments on sustainability and transferability: First, we have to put this theme on all relevant agenda’s and make links between the existing groups and networks, to create a strong fundament. Next, we want to develop a regional vision and framework from which existing initiatives can be given a boost and new initiatives can be started. Bring people together around these themes, in an informal setting, is working out well. A hospital is a large and important player in the region, and able to organize this kind of things for a region with many individual health professionals. Discussions: How can we influence administrative agenda’s in our region to achieve the right goals with the right partners? Which party can be the big dynamic of change? Lessons learned: We are dealing with different regions and individual stakeholders. We have to involve each of them. We have to exceed our individual interests and build a common ambition if we really want to change the way we work. And it takes time, be patient.

Patterns in Adapted Football Immigration

While there has been a large quantity of research about migration for elite football players, less research has been done migration patterns of football players with disabilities. An investigation of adapted football players suggests historical migration patterns mirror both football migration patterns. Players following these paths are not doing so for football reasons, and specific types of disabilities are underrepresented in migration despite having large player bases.

Regions and Cities as Stimulators Towards Green and Digital Economy

There will always be inequalities in economic development within a country. The composition of the population, the presence of large economic players, the presence of good schools and universities make the ascendance of a population towards economic improvement easier in one region compared with other ones. But to arrive to these results, the effort should not come from the sole national government. This article intends hereby to develop the various aspects of regional development from the perspective of green and digital economy.

Unfolding the Twitter scene of the 2017 UEFA Champions League Final: social media networks and power dynamics

ABSTRACTResearch question: This study investigated the Twitter networks of the Champions League hashtag (#UCL) across the 2017 UEFA Champions League Final. Through an examination of network parameters and shifting structures, the analyses disclosed patterns of attention and power distributed among various sport stakeholders and fans. It advanced the inquiry of sport social media ecologies by engaging in theoretical discussions of media gatekeeping and power dynamics.Research methods: The study employed a social network analysis. A data scraping software was utilized to collect all conversations attached to #UCL during the pre-match, halftime, and post-match. Overall, the data included 19,869 posts for pre-match, 3276 posts for halftime, and 5691 for post-match.Results and findings: The #UCL network emerged with relatively low density and heterogeneous communication interest during the pre-match, and then moved towards higher density. Meanwhile, emergent game dynamics played a meaningful role in structuring the networked relationships. Large sport entities and star players, including the Champions League and Cristiano Ronaldo, had relatively stable and privileged positions in organizing the networks.Implications: The results indicated that the Twitter network structures allowed the prominence of large sport entities to be further recognized and legitimated, whereas individual citizens had constrained capacity to generate influence. This finding holds implications for sport teams and their stakeholders as it underscores the relational and dynamic nature of digital networks and the importance of strategically managing social media as a critical communication resource.

Organisational Ambidexterity in the UK Financial Services: A Corporate Level Perspective

This paper fills theoretical gaps in the scholarly discourse of organisational ambidexterity (OA) by focusing on the concepts of balanced dimension (BD) and combined dimension (CD) of OA. Through a qualitative cross‐comparative case study method it investigates BD/CD at corporate level within the dynamic and competitive UK financial services sector. The study brings greater clarity on the construct of OA and its use in real practice. It shows that forms of OA, CD and BD, are influenced by the firm's strategic choice in specific market segments. Niche players pursuing focused differentiation attain a CD, whereas large players pursuing cost leadership attain a BD of ambidexterity. Exploitation‐exploration efforts are triggered by sets of firm's contingencies that are distinctive to each dimension. Resource flexibility moderates the attainment of desirable ambidexterity's dimensions in contexts of munificent resources. At the corporate level, managers’ long tenure facilitates OA. Theoretical and practical implications are offered.

Making it happen: Entrepreneurs’ perspectives on co-creation partnerships with Corporates

Large companies increasingly look for collaborations with new ventures to accelerate their innovation process, and indeed current research stresses the potential of such partnerships to develop innovations. But when are entrepreneurs willing to engage in a partnership with a larger player? We conduct a conjoint experiment with 115 independent entrepreneurs to understand entrepreneurs’ behavior when they are confronted with a cooperative offer. We seek to understand when founders of new ventures are willing to engage in such asymmetric partnerships through consideration of the characteristics of the entrepreneurial decision maker and the perceived attributes of the larger counterpart. The results of the hierarchical linear model suggest that a high level of openness of the large company and concise contractual design signal trustworthiness to entrepreneurs, which has a positive impact on their willingness to partner. Our study also suggests that entrepreneurs’ self-efficacy reduces the willingness to partner and the positive impact of concise contractual designs. The results have implications for the self- concept and the design of innovation and partner management of large firms.

Radio-pharmaceuticals for cancer treatment: are they ready for prime time yet?

Radio-pharmaceuticals for cancer treatment: are they ready for prime time yet?