Case Study
This is a French translation of the case?. This is the first of a three-case series. In October 1988, members of the Board and CEO's (chief executive officers) of Roussel-Uclaf (one of the French leaders of the pharmaceutical industry) had to decide whether or not to put in the market RU 486, a pill that provokes abortion without use of surgical methods. The (A) case highlights the issues that they had to consider in order to make the decision; namely, potential ethical problems (including the risk of conflict with employees and executives who oppose the participation of the company on anything related to abortion); a possibility of deterioration of the relationship of Roussel-Uclaf with its parent company Hoechst (of Germany), which opposed the product; and intense public pressure accompanied by a threat of a boycott that could produce important economic losses. The (B) case narrates the subsequent events: Roussel-Uclaf decided to suspend distribution of the product. But two days after the firm made its decision public, the French Government intervened and mandated the firm to reverse its decision. Part (C) describes the French experience with RU 486 and the possibilities of making the product available world-wide. It emphasizes the problems posed by the possible marketing of the product in the United States, where the abortion issue ranks first in many political agendas, and in the Third World, where the deficiency of medical facilities poses a serious risk of misuse of the product.
Faculty
Emeritus Professor of Asian Business
