Recently, pfizer and allergan – the makers of viagra and botox, respectively – initiated a $160 billion merger. pharmaceutical companies tend to spend a greater percentage of sales on r& d activities than other industries. the government encourages these r& d activities by granting companies patents for drugs approved by the food and drug administration. for instance, allergan spent large sums of money developing its popular wrinkle-removing neurotoxin, botox, which is currently protected under a patent. botox sells for about $15 per vial. calculate the lerner index if the marginal cost of producing botox is $1.50 per vial.

Miko willingly admits that she is not an accountant by training. she is concerned that her balance sheet might not be correct. she has provided you with the following additional information. 1. the boat actually belongs to miko, not to skysong, inc.. however, because she thinks she might take customers out on the boat occasionally, she decided to list it as an asset of the company. to be consistent, she also listed as a liability of the corporation her personal loan that she took out at the bank to buy the boat. 2. the inventory was originally purchased for $27,500, but due to a surge in demand miko now thinks she could sell it for $39,600. she thought it would be best to record it at $39,600. 3. included in the accounts receivable balance is $11,000 that miko loaned to her brother 5 years ago. miko included this in the receivables of skysong, inc. so she wouldn’t forget that her brother owes her money. (b) provide a corrected balance sheet for skysong, inc.. (hint: to get the balance sheet to balance, adjust stockholders’ equity.) (list assets in order of liquidity.)

Onsider the following subscription behavior information from genie, a web site that provides tools for constructing a family tree (ancestor search). subscriptions cost $9.99 per month, but you are charged for the entire year at the time of purchase. there is a one-year minimum term when you sign up for the service. once purchased, subscriptions are set to renew automatically unless the subscriber cancels them. when a membership renews, it renews for a one-year term and again you are charged for the entire year. there are no variable costs associated with providing this service to an individual customer, but genie does engage in customer relationship activities that they believe will increase customer retention. these customer relationship activities cost genie about $10 per year per customer. based on a sample of 1000 customers that joined genie five years ago, near the time when the company was founded, they were able to determine how many of those customers remained subscribers in the second year, third year etc. based on this information, genie calculated the average annual retention rate to be 20%. genie uses an annual discount rate of 8%. a. last year, genie spent $10,000 placing advertisements on google. genie management believes that these advertisements were responsible for about 300 new subscribers. would you recommend to genie management that they purchase more google ads? b. suppose a newly-introduced loyalty program increases the number of customers that remained to 30%. does this new data change your answer to 9.a? c. do you have any hesitations or concerns about making recommendations to management based on your above estimate of customer lifetime value?

Happy foods and general grains both produce similar puffed rice breakfast cereals. for both companies, thecost of producing a box of cereal is 45 cents, and it is not possible for either company to lower their productioncosts any further. how can one company achieve a competitive advantage over the other?