product development failure case study

10 Recent Product Design Failures And What We Can Learn From Them

Google Glass

Sometimes products that look great on paper fail to deliver to customers. These products had all the promise and the world and failed for a number of reasons.

Here are 10 great modern failures of industry and what we can learn from the doomed product designs.

1. Microsoft Zune

Microsoft launched the Zune in 2006 as a competitor to the iPod. Its biggest failure was that it was simply late to the game—Apple had firmly established the iPod as a portable music player for five years before Microsoft entered the field. There also weren’t any innovative or differentiating features to entice people to buy a Zune instead of an iPod. Instead of improving on problems from the iPod, Microsoft made a very similar product that didn’t compel people to switch from what they knew. The Zune wasn’t necessarily a bad product, but it failed because Microsoft didn’t make bold enough changes to make it stand out. It was discontinued in 2011, but devout fans can still buy old Zunes on eBay.

2. Google Glass

It seemed like the device of the future: using voice commands and having information displayed directly into your field of vision. Google Glass debuted in 2012 and was touted as the future of AI. However, almost immediately it was criticized for an unfashionable design. There were also privacy concerns because Google Glass allowed users to record video without anyone noticing, which led to it being banned in many public areas. Not to mention the high price tag of $1,500. People weren’t willing to overlook the flaws for the high cost for a product they didn’t want to wear and didn’t think they needed. Google officially ended Glass in 2015 after years of disappointing sales.

3. Mobile ESPN

In 2006, ESPN introduced a phone that would offer exclusive content and video and give fans easy access to their favorite teams. The problem was that ESPN only had one phone model available, which was a clunky flip phone that sold for $400, plus the monthly fee of $40 to access the ESPN content. Customers didn’t want to pay so much money just to have access to sports scores. ESPN shut down the service within a year, but not before it spent $150 million on development.

4. Facebook Home

In 2013, Facebook tried—and failed—to expand its dominance in social media. Facebook Home turned the home screen of a user’s phone into their Facebook news feed. Customers weren’t impressed, and most people reported that only the most Facebook-obsessed people would enjoy it—if that. The design was clunky and couldn’t be customized, and many people reported it used large amounts of data and battery. Less than a month after Facebook Home was released, the cost of a two-year subscription dropped from $99 to $0.99. Facebook soon disbanded the team that was working on the project.

5. Amazon Fire Phone

Amazon announced its entry to the smart phone market with the Fire Phone in 2014, but the product was discontinued the next year after just one model. Fire Phone’s biggest differentiator was 3D face scanning technology, but many people thought it was too gimmick-y. The phone was also only released on AT&T, which greatly limited the number of customers who could purchase it. Most users thought the phone was only mediocre and overpriced and that it wasn’t worth paying more to switch from their current phones. When Amazon cancelled the project, it took a loss of $170 million.

6. Orbitz Soda

New drinks are always being introduced, and many customers were excited when they saw Orbitz Soda show up on shelves in 1997. The clear liquid was full of floating gelatin balls, which got the attention of people but soon fizzled out. To start, Orbitz wasn’t actually a soda, but it wasn’t a juice either. Early customers didn’t enjoy the taste or texture. No matter how catchy the product design or gimmick, it doesn’t make up for a poor product.

Even before it was released in 2017, Juicero caught the attention of investors and customers, earning $120 million from investors before it hit shelves. Selling for $700, Juicero was a Wi-Fi-enabled juicer that could only use special Juicero fruit packets, which cost up to $8 each. Customers quickly dismissed the idea of an unnecessary kitchen gadget that they viewed as extremely overpriced. The company shut down less than six months after it started.

8. Cosmopolitan Yogurt

Cosmopolitan magazine is known for its women-centric content, dating advice and fashion spreads. Women just love yogurt so much this would make perfect sense, right? Well not really. When the company expanded into yogurt in 1999, people were understandably confused. The ill-fated yogurt line only lasted 18 months, and many people still don’t understand what made the magazine think it would be a good fit in another area of the grocery store. Expanding to new product areas can be a good source of growth, but they still need to be related to the original brand.

9. HP Touchpad

HP was eager to compete with the iPad when it released the Touchpad in 2011 with a huge event and expensive advertising. However, it soon became clear that HP had rushed the release of its product with a poor operating system and lots of bugs. Stores soon faced excess inventory and were forced to slash prices. HP eventually discontinued the Touchpad and took a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars.  

10. Cheeto’s Lip Balm

This one doesn’t even sound like a good idea on paper. Customer love Cheeto’s and they love lip balm, so Frito Lay decided to combine the two in 2005 when it introduced Cheeto’s Lip Balm. The company expected loyal fans to be excited for the product, but sales bombed and it was quickly pulled from shelves. Just because a product is successful in one area doesn’t mean it needs to be used in all areas.

These product designs and failures of industry were extremely costly for companies, both to their budgets and their reputations. Launching a new product is always a gamble, but taking time to research customers and the market and test the product can help avoid potential future failures.

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Blake Morgan is a keynote speaker, customer experience futurist and the author of two books including her new "The Customer Of The Future." Stay in touch with her weekly on her newsletter.

When product launches go awry: 50 worst product flops of all time

Some product launches can be spectacular failures, and Google Glass, an eyeglasses shaped head-mounted device with smartphone capabilities, failed in such a manner several years ago. It was meant to be the first piece of technology to connect the typical consumer to augmented reality.

Google continues to attempt to find a place for the product, but its original launch was a definitive failure. In 2017, the internet giant announced the relaunch of the device to target to businesses rather than the general public, but whatever happens, it will be adopted by a meaningfully narrower audience.

Just like success, failure is part of doing business. Entrepreneurs and large companies often take big risks, hoping for success but not always achieving it.

These failures take many different forms. When a product doesn’t sell, when it is recalled or discontinued, or when it otherwise does not come close to meeting a company’s expectations or plans, it can be marked as a failure. While failures are expected, some can be so catastrophic they can lead to permanent damage to a company’s reputation, layoffs, and even complete financial ruin.

Sometimes, it can take years, or even decades for a product flop to disappear from the market. This was the case with Betamax a video format which Sony introduced, expecting it to replace VHS. Despite being technologically superior to VHS, Betamax lost market share until it eventually vanished.

24/7 Wall Street reviewed some of the greatest product launch blunders throughout history. Today, these product flops exist as case studies companies use to avoid future failure. They range from Ford’s Edsel in 1958 to 2016’s Galaxy Note 7. Many of these products led to losses in the hundreds of millions, and sometimes billions. In tech, film, the internet, the pharmaceutical industry, and more, these are the biggest product flops of all time.

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1. Google Glass

• Company: Google
• Year introduced: 2013
• What it was: Wearable technology

Google first announced Google Glass -- an eyeglasses shaped head-mounted display with smartphone capabilities -- to the public in 2012. The announcement began with a statement of principle: “We think technology should work for you -- to be there when you need it and get out of your way when you don’t.” After two years of disappointing sales, it was clear consumers did not need Google Glass. Google stuck to its principle, and in 2015 discontinued the product’s development. Privacy concerns, reported bugs, low battery life, bans from public spaces, and an inability to live up to the hype all stymied public adoption of the technology.

2. The Newton

• Company: Apple
• Year introduced: 1993
• What it was: Personal digital assistant

While the personal digital assistant would become a popular consumer electronics product in the late 1990s, the first PDA was one of the biggest product flops of all time. One year after Apple CEO John Sculley coined the term “PDA” in 1992, the company released the Newton MessagePad. While the device incorporated innovative technology such as a pen-based touch screen and the ability to sync with software on a personal computer, Apple sold only 50,000 units of the product in its first four months on the market. The Newton product line was discontinued in 1998.

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3. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

• Company: Atari
• Year introduced: 1982
• What it was: Video game

Several video games have failed over the years, but arguably none as spectacularly as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The video game was created/developed shortly after the release of Steven Spielberg’s classic film. With only five weeks spent in development -- games typically take months, if not years, to program -- the game was notoriously difficult and sold miserably. Atari spent $21 million to purchase the rights to the franchise and $5 million on promotion of the game. The company made 4 million copies of the game, but sold only 1.5 million. Atari buried the leftover copies in a landfill.

4. Satisfries

• Company: Burger King
• What it was: French fries

In 2013, Burger King introduced a new menu item advertised as a healthy alternative to their traditional french fries. Satisfries used a less porous batter, which caused the fry to absorb less oil than regular fries during cooking. While Satisfries were made with a healthier recipe, Burger King failed to convey the difference to customers. The fries were also more expensive than Burger King’s regular french fries, and failed to gain traction with consumers. The company discontinued the fries in 2014, less than a year after they were introduced.

5. Premier smokeless cigarettes

• Company: RJ Reynolds
• Year introduced: 1988
• What it was: Cigarette

R.J. Reynolds, the second largest U.S. tobacco company, began marketing in 1988 a smokeless tobacco product that was intended to be a safer way to use a cigarette. In addition to concerns over the product's actual safety, smokers missed the familiar elements of traditional cigarettes -- the smoke, the burn, and the flick. Another issue was the widely-reported unpleasant chemical taste, which one user described as resembling “burning plastic.” Reynolds sunk close to $1 billion into the product before pulling it off the market within a year.

6. Cheetos Lip Balm

• Company: Frito-Lay
• Year introduced: 2005
• What it was: Lip balm

Popular lip balm brands such as Chapstick, Blistex, and Burt’s Bees, have successfully sold their products to Americans for decades. Many prefer such flavored varieties as cherry, mint, and vanilla bean. Not every popular flavor can be successfully turned into a lip balm, however, a lesson PepsiCo subsidiary Frito-Lay learned the hard way in 2005. While Cheetos has been a popular snack for more than six decades, Cheetos-flavored lip balm failed to catch on with consumers.

7. Terra Nova

• Company: Fox
• Year introduced: 2011
• What it was: TV show

Every year, TV shows are cancelled before the end of their first season. While Terra Nova, which aired for one 13-episode season, is not unusual in this regard, it may go down as the most costly cancelled television show of all time. Documenting the time-traveling adventures of a 22nd century family fleeing a dystopian society for a prehistoric past, the pilot of the show alone cost Fox between $16 and $20 million to make. Terra Nova encountered numerous production mishaps while filming in Australia, including a flood that nearly killed a crew member. Ratings failed to meet expectations, and the show was not renewed for a second season. Fox is estimated to have spent more than $50 million on the failed show, not including marketing costs.

8. Touch of Yogurt shampoo

• Company: Clairol
• Year introduced: 1979
• What it was: Shampoo

In keeping with the 1970s trend of incorporating natural food ingredients like lemon, herbs, and honey into beauty and hygiene products, Clairol -- at the time a subsidiary of Bristol-Myers Squibb -- thought a yogurt shampoo was just what the American consumer wanted. It turned out the company had grossly miscalculated. Many consumers were apparently confused as to what they had bought, as there were reported cases of people eating the shampoo.

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9. New Coke

• Company: Coca-Cola
• Year introduced: 1985
• What it was: Soft drink

Over the 15 years leading up to 1985, Coca-Cola’s flagship cola drink had been losing market share to Pepsi Cola. To compete, the company changed the drink’s formula for the first time in 99 years -- but the move today is considered one of the greatest flops of all time. New Coke was met with public outrage and lasted only a few months. The company reintroduced its older formula, rebranded as Coca-Cola Classic.

10. Windows Vista

• Company: Microsoft
• Year introduced: 2007
• What it was: Operating system

Introduced in 2007 as a follow-up to Windows XP, the Windows Vista operating system was everything its popular predecessor was not -- in all the wrong ways. Panned by customers and IT professionals alike, Vista reduced PC performance and caused a number of internet problems for users. As a result, Dell began offering Windows XP again on new laptops a few short months after Vista was introduced. Windows announced this month that it would no longer provide support for Vista, driving the final nail into the operating system’s coffin.

11. Kitchen Entrees

• Company: Colgate
• What it was: Frozen meal

Many of the worst product flops in recent memory were caused by otherwise popular brands wandering too far outside of their area of expertise. Colgate Kitchen Entrees may be the best example of such a product failure. When it came to pre-prepared frozen meals, Americans had plenty of options in the 1980s. Perhaps because consumers naturally associated the Colgate name with toothpaste, there was never much of an appetite for pre-made meals bearing the Colgate logo.

12. Coors Rocky Mountain Sparkling Water

• Company: Coors
• Year introduced: 1990
• What it was: Sparkling water

Coors and Coors Light are two of the most popular beers in the United States. Introducing Coors Rocky Mountain Sparkling Water to the public in 1990, the Coors Brewing Company also sought to capitalize on the fast-growing bottled water segment in the United States. The water was Coors' first non-alcoholic product since Prohibition. The Coors brand name did not help to sell the product, however, as the beer-name branding may have confused or even frightened consumers. Coors let its trademark of Rocky Mountain Sparkling Water expire in 1997.

13. Harley Davidson perfume

• Company: Harley Davidson
• Year released: 1994
• What it was: Perfume

Harley Davidson is one of the most iconic and valuable brands in the world. It is also one of the most masculine brands. The company has not deviated considerably from this manly personality, although it has tried. The company released Legendary Harley-Davidson, a cologne for men, among several other varieties, starting in 1994. Another perfume, Black Fire, hit the market as recently as 2005. All are now discontinued. In the 1990s, the company released a number of other products, including wine coolers and aftershave, which after failing miserably have also become classic cases of brand overextension.

14. Persil Power

• Holding company: Unilever
• What it was: Stain remover

Unilever introduced Persil Power detergent to the market in 1994. The product utilized a newly patented stain removal formula called Accelerator. The company was so confident in the Accelerator catalyst that it carried out its $300 million introduction of Persil Power without any formal test marketing. Over time, it became clear the detergent was damaging clothes at high temperatures. After nine months on the shelves, the company replaced Persil Power with Persil New Generation, a detergent without the Accelerator compound.

15. Cosmopolitan yogurt

• Company: Cosmopolitan
• Year introduced: 1999
• What it was: Yogurt

Cosmopolitan is a popular women’s magazine, full of fashion advice, dating tips, celebrity gossip, and horoscopes. What the magazine’s leadership was thinking when they expanded the brand’s reach from the magazine aisle to the dairy aisle remains a mystery. Few will likely remember the 1999 debut of Cosmopolitan’s yogurt line, as the short-lived product was only available for 18 months. Like many other products on this list, Cosmopolitan yogurt was a case of a brand reaching too far beyond its area of expertise.

16. DH 106 Comet

• Company: De Havilland
• Year introduced: 1949
• What it was: Airplane

We now take jet travel for granted, but the development of a commercially viable jetliner involved a great deal of trial, error, and some utter failures. De Havilland, a British aircraft manufacturer, developed the Comet, the first commercial jet airliner. Unfortunately, within a few years of its 1949 debut, the Comet encountered several unexplained fatal crashes, including planes overrunning the runway and one exploding in midair. The Comet's reputation plummeted, and while De Havilland scrambled to redesign the plane, American companies Douglas and Boeing took over the industry.

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17. DeLorean DMC-12

• Company: Delorean Motor Company
• Year introduced: 1981
• What it was: Sports car

In 1973, auto executive John DeLorean left General Motors to form the DeLorean Motor Company. After years of production delays, the DeLorean DMC-12 was released in January 1981. The car’s unique design was poorly received, however, and by 1982 less than half of the 7,000 DeLorean units produced had been sold. The DeLorean is widely recognized due to its use as a converted time machine in the “Back to the Future” series. However, the first of these films was released in 1985, far too late to save the ill-fated brand. DeLorean filed for bankruptcy in 1982.

18. EZ Squirt

• Company: Heinz
• Year released: 2000
• Company revenue when released: Ketchup

Before EZ Squirt, ketchup was always varying shades of red. To cater to kids, who were -- and still are -- among ketchup’s largest groups of consumers, Heinz began producing purple, green, and blue EZ Squirt ketchup in matching, vibrantly colored squeeze bottles. At first, the colorful ketchup was a huge success. The novelty wore off quickly, however, and not long after its introduction, sales of EZ Squirt began to decline. In January 2006, less than six years after its debut, Heinz halted production of the product.

19. United States Football League

• Company: USFL
• What it was: Sports league

Conceived as a way to satiate America's appetite for football in the spring and summer months, the United States Football League was introduced in 1982. The league originally consisted of 12 teams, one of which, the New Jersey Generals, was owned by President Donald Trump. The league was beset with problems, not the least of which was finding stadiums to play in. Ultimately, over half a dozen teams folded when the league’s brain trust decided to compete directly with the NFL by scheduling games in the fall. By 1985, the league was finished.

• Company: Facebook
• What it was: Mobile phone app

With rising mobile phone use and social media engagement, Facebook in 2013 decided to launch a family of apps that combine these trends. Facebook Home converts the home screen of a smartphone into the Facebook news feed. While most of Facebook’s over 1 billion users log in to their accounts on a smartphone, the social media giant’s new product never caught on. Early users cited clunky operation, the inability to toggle between Facebook Home and the original phone interface, and lack of options for customization, among other snags.

• Company: Ford
• Year introduced: 1957
• What it was: Car

Ford spent a year aggressively marketing the Edsel -- named after Henry Ford’s son -- ahead of its 1957 release. It was to be the “car of the future,” made available on dealership lots on what Ford dubbed “E-Day." Despite the hype, the car was a commercial disaster. It was considerably overpriced, disappointingly not futuristic, and generally ugly. Ford ceased the car's production after only two years, losing an estimated $350 million.

22. Friendster

• Company: Friendster
• Year introduced: 2002
• What it was: Social media site

Social media site Facebook is one of the biggest corporate success stories in recent memory. Unfortunately, when it comes to social media, for every success story there is at least one flop -- as in the case of Friendster. The site’s users suffered through slow page loading times and the company’s developers failed to scale up when the number of subscribers spiked. Ultimately, competitors such as Facebook provided a much better user experience. Introduced in 2002, Friendster discontinued its services in mid-2015.

23. WOW! Chips

• Year introduced: 1998
• What it was: Snack

PepsiCo subsidiary Frito-Lay introduced its line of WOW! Chips in 1998. The chips, which were made with the fat substitute olestra, were marketed as a healthy snacking alternative. While WOW! Chips were an initial success with $347 million in sales in their first year -- the most of any new product in 1998 -- sales slowed when the unpleasant side effects of olestra, such as diarrhea and cramps, became better known. To add to the product’s problems, the Food and Drug Administration instituted labeling requirements for all products containing olestra to carry warnings of “abdominal cramping and loose stools," and by 2000, sales of WOW! Chips were roughly 60% of what they were in the year of their release.

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• Year introduced: 2006
• What it was: MP3 player

In an attempt to compete with Apple's dominant iPod MP3 player, Microsoft released the Zune in 2006. As of November 15, 2015, Microsoft discontinued all streaming, downloading, and other music services for the Zune. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009, Microsoft recorded a 42% decline in revenue in its non-gaming devices segment -- a decline largely attributable to the Zune’s poor performance. While the device might have been a reasonable choice for consumers, a number of reported bugs did not help sales. On December 31, 2008, most if not all 30GB Zunes stopped functioning simply because the underlying code had failed to account for the extra day in leap years.

25. Relenza

• Company: GlaxoSmithKline
• What it was: Influenza pandemic drug

In 1999, a flu pandemic fear caused by the spread of avian flu created demand for antiviral medications. The FDA approved two flu drugs during the pandemic -- Tamiflu and Relenza. The former went on to report massive sales, while the latter became one of the worst product flops in the pharmaceutical industry. The powder form of the drug caused respiratory problems in some patients and was only approved as a treatment for influenza rather than a preventative measure. GlaxoSmithKline sold just $13 million worth of the drug in the first quarter of 2006. By comparison, Roche reported $770 million in Tamiflu sales in the first half of the year.

26. Google+

No all product flops are necessarily discontinued. Sometimes, despite failing to live up to company expectations, they linger. Such is the case with Google+, the social media platform the Silicon Valley giant launched in 2011 to compete with Facebook. However, even with a monumental marketing campaign, Google+ failed to distinguish itself from Facebook and never took off in the same manner. While the site experienced an initial surge in subscribers, by April 2015, Google+ had experienced a 98% decline in user engagement. Today, Google+ has some active user groups and is often used to share photos.

27. HP Touchpad

• Company: Hewlett-Packard
• What it was: Tablet computer

The TouchPad was Hewlett Packard’s attempt to compete with Apple’s wildly successful iPad. Hewlett Packard unveiled the device in the middle of 2011 with an extremely costly advertising campaign. The rollout incorporated numerous celebrity contracts. By late summer, however, box stores such as Best Buy were sitting on excess inventory, and HP began offering steep discounts. Many discounted TouchPads were sold at a loss, and it is estimated the company lost hundreds of millions on the product in all.

28. Kellogg's Breakfast Mates

• Company: Kellogg's
• What it was: Breakfast food

In 1998, Kellogg’s introduced Breakfast Mates, an all-in-one package containing a serving of cereal, a small carton of milk, and a plastic spoon. The product was designed as a time saver that would appeal busy families with two working parents. The stated convenience of the all-in-one packaging did little to save time, largely because traditional cereal is already relatively convenient to consume. In a controlled test reported by The New York Times, preparing a bowl of cereal the traditional way took only one second longer than preparing a bowl of Breakfast Mates. To make matters worse, the product’s $30 million ad campaign sent a mixed message, depicting a family eating the supposedly portable cereal around the kitchen table. In August 1999, Kellogg’s announced Breakfast Mates would be discontinued due to low sales.

29. Maxwell House Brewed Coffee

• Company: Maxwell House
• What it was: Coffee

Maxwell House Brewed Coffee was pre-brewed coffee sold in a carton with a picture of a hot mug of coffee on the packaging, a misleading visual cue for a product meant to be stored in the refrigerator. Adding to the product’s issues, the carton was lined with foil and could not be microwaved. For a product marketed for its convenience, this was an especially problematic feature for consumers. The product was discontinued shortly after it was released.

30. Arch Deluxe

• Company: McDonald's
• Year introduced: 1996
• What it was: Hamburger

McDonald’s introduced several failed products throughout its 60-year history, but none so monumental as the Arch Deluxe. Introduced in 1996, the Arch Deluxe was marketed as a more gastronomic hamburger with “a grown-up taste." One commercial featured a child unable to enjoy the sophisticated burger, stripping its toppings to satisfy his unrefined palate. The Arch Deluxe’s advertising budget was an estimated $200 million, the most of any fast food product at the time. However, the approach failed and sales of the Arch Deluxe missed the $1 billion expectation set for its first year. The Arch Deluxe was eventually discontinued.

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• Company: Toshiba
• What it was: Media storage/playback device

Blu-ray’s succession of the DVD was not preordained. Before Blu-ray was the dominant medium for video playback, it was competing with Toshiba’s HD DVD. Essentially the same product, HD DVD was effectively taken out to pasture when in January 2008, Warner Bros. announced it would only support Sony’s Blu-ray format. Toshiba was not the only loser in the battle against Blu-ray. Millions of Americans found themselves stuck with HD DVD players and laptops after the dust settled.

32. Microsoft Bob

• Year introduced: 1995
• What it was: User interface

Microsoft released Microsoft Bob in March 1995. Intended as a simple, easy-to-use OS interface at the time, Bob presented the desktop as a house, with familiar objects corresponding with different computer applications. Clicking on the stationary lying on a desk, for example, opened the word processor. Despite its simple appearance, Bob required more processing power than most home computers had in 1995. Bob was also considered too expensive and poorly designed, and was overshadowed by the release of Windows 95 later that year. Bob was discontinued roughly a year after its release.

33. 47 Ronin

• Company: Universal Pictures
• What it was: Movie

The 2013 fantasy action film “47 Ronin”, starring Keanu Reeves, is now notorious as one of the biggest box office flops of all time. The movie lost nearly $150 million on a $225 million budget and left Universal Pictures in the red for the fiscal year. Insiders point to multiple rewrites of the screenplay as well as several post-production changes that were made as filmmakers and studio executives attempted to find creative balance while appeasing moviegoers. In the end, the film failed to strike a chord with audiences and critics alike.

34. Qwikster

• Company: Netflix
• What it was: DVD rental service

Before Netflix became the media streaming giant we know today, it was exclusively a deliver-by-mail DVD rental service. In an ill conceived of strategy, CEO Reed Hastings announced in September 2011 the company's plan to spin off its DVD rental service into a separate company, known as Qwikster. The move, which was meant to allow Netflix to focus more on its streaming services, would have cost consumers about 60% more if they wished to continue to have access to both services. Unpopular with customers and widely criticized, Hastings scrapped the plan less than a month after it was announced.

35. Virtual Boy

• Company: Nintendo
• What it was: Portable game console

Virtual Boy was game console maker Nintendo’s early foray into virtual reality technology. However, the company discontinued the portable console less than a year after its 1995 release, selling just 770,000 units globally. It is known as one of the company’s worst failures. To cut costs and reduce battery drain, Nintendo used only black and red shades in Virtual Boy games, which bothered some users. Using the Virtual Boy also caused eye strain in some users, which led Nintendo to include an automatic shutoff mechanism.

• Company: Nokia/Intel
• Year introduced: 2010

Unlike Windows Vista, another operating system on this list, smartphone OS MeeGo was not necessarily a flawed product. By most accounts, the MeeGo operating system just came at the wrong time. Not long after its introduction, the operating system was dropped by then Nokia CEO Stephen Elop in favor of Windows Phone 7 operating system. Though it has not been used in years, MeeGo may find a second life as a tablet operating system.

37. Crystal Pepsi

• Company: Pepsi
• Year introduced: 1992
• What it was: Soda

Crystal Pepsi was introduced to soda lovers across the United States in 1992. The product tasted like regular cola but was clear and caffeine free in an attempt to convey purity and heath. Crystal Pepsi was heavily promoted, with the company even buying an ad slot during Super Bowl XXVII. Despite strong initial sales, the public’s interest quickly waned and the soda was discontinued less than two years after its release.

38. Hot Wheels and Barbie computers

• Company: Mattel / Patriot Computers
• Year released: 1999
• What it was: Toy computer

In 1999, Mattel announced that it had entered a licensing agreement to sell Barbie and Hot Wheels computers. The computers would be manufactured and sold by the Patriot Computer Corporation, a privately held company based in Toronto. The move was part of an attempt to reconcile the declining sales of Barbie dolls and growing sales of software and CD-ROMs.

The computers, however, had many manufacturing flaws, and the resources Patriot devoted to fixing and replacing broken computers drove it out of business. By December the following year, the company had fired its 200 employees and filed for bankruptcy.

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39. LaserDisc

• Company: Phillips
• Year introduced: 1978

LaserDisc was effectively a precursor to the DVD, offering consumers a higher quality picture and sound than VHS tapes. The product’s numerous drawbacks, however, outweighed any benefits. Unlike VHS players, LaserDisc players could not record television shows -- an important feature before the days of TiVo. LaserDisc players, as well as LaserDiscs themselves, were also relatively expensive. Introduced in the 1970s, LaserDisc made a brief comeback in the 90s, but ultimately failed to gain traction.

40. Dreamcast

• Company: Sega
• Year introduced: 1999 (North America)
• What it was: Game console

In the 1990s, Sega was a dominant player in the consoles and games business. Sega had such success with its Sonic the Hedgehog games and Genesis console, that at one point the company held 60% of the North American market. The Dreamcast launched in 1999 in North America, within a few years of successful predecessors like the Nintendo 64 and Sony Playstation. Many consider the Dreamcast to have been ahead of its time -- it was the first console to introduce worldwide network compatibility -- but the system just never caught on. Dreamcast sold miserably and was discontinued after just over two years, in part due to the success of the PS2, which launched in 2000. While it was not Sega’s only failure, it may have been its most colossal, marking the end of the company’s attempts at game consoles.

41. S&W Mountain Bikes

• Company: Smith & Wesson
• What it was: Mountain bike

Gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson has been making police bicycles for about 20 years. The company also attempted to sell mountain bikes to the general public in 2002. Like many other products on this list, the company’s consumer bike segment likely failed because bicycles were too far beyond the scope of the Smith & Wesson brand and what most Americans associate with it.

• Year introduced: 1983
• What it was: Personal computer

Before Apple hit its stride in the 2000s and became the most profitable corporation in history, the company was responsible for some of the worst product flops of all time. Designed as a high-end personal computer with a graphical user interface for business customers, the Apple Lisa took three years and $50 million to develop before its release in 1983. However, the computer’s $9,995 price tag, which is equivalent to roughly $25,000 today, was too high for many consumers. After selling just 100,000 units in two years Apple discontinued the Lisa in 1985.

43. Betamax

• Company: Sony
• Year introduced: 1975
• What it was: Video cassette format

In the early 1970s, videotapes were still a novel technology, and the VHS tape had yet to become the standard video cassette format. Sony introduced the Betamax format in 1975, one year before JVC introduced the VHS tape. While Betamax tapes had superior resolution and sound quality, Sony refrained from licensing its technology to other manufacturers, in turn limiting the variety of movies available on the format. Meanwhile, JVC licensed its VHS technology to any interested manufacturer. The Betamax’s share of the VCR market fell from 100% in 1975 to 10% in 1988, and continued to dwindle in the following years.

44. Too Human

• Company: Silicon Knights
• Year introduced: 2008

Released in 2008 after years of costly development delays, “Too Human” failed to live up to expectation and became one of the worst flops in video game history. A legal ruling eventually removed the game from the marketplace and pushed Silicon Knights, the game’s developer, into bankruptcy. The game’s production budget skyrocketed to an estimated $100 million after the game engine developer, Epic Games, failed to deliver the engine on time, forcing Silicon Knights to build it own game engine. When Silicon Knights sued Epic Games for missing the deadline, the latter counter-sued, which resulted in a court order forcing the developer to destroy all unsold copies of the game.

More: Are these the worst cities to live in? Study looks at quality of life across the U.S.

45. Mobile ESPN

• Company: ESPN
• What it was: Mobile phone service

In 2006, ESPN attempted to capitalize on the desire of sports fan to have access to sports stats, scores, and video on the go. Mobile ESPN required users to buy a specific phone, which would include access to ESPN content as part of the subscription. However, the only phone Mobile ESPN offered, a Sanyo, cost $400, and the service was $40 per month, too rich for many sports fans. The service shut down within a year. Disney, ESPN’s parent company, spent $150 million on the failed venture.

46. Life Savers soda

• Company: Life Savers

Though Life Savers soda tested well in focus groups, it failed to gain traction with the broader consumer market. Many attribute the soft drink’s failure to the prevailing perception that it was liquid candy. The soda was available in some of the candy’s popular fruit flavors, including pineapple, orange punch, grape punch, and lime punch. Life Savers did not release a mint flavored soda, however.

47. Mars Needs Moms

• Company: Walt Disney Motion
• What it was: Studio film

Released in March 2011, Disney’s “Mars Needs Moms” grossed just $6.9 million in its opening weekend. Produced with a $150 million budget, “Mars Needs Moms” was one of the worst flops in cinema history. Film critics partially blame animation studio ImageMovers Digital for the film’s box office failure. The movie was animated using an expensive motion-capture process, a technology still in its infancy. According to one viewer, “The movie looked downright creepy.” ImageMovers Digital was closed after the studio wrapped production on the film.

• Company: Eons.com

In July 2006, Monster.com founder Jeff Taylor launched Eons.com -- a social network for baby boomers and other internet users over the age of 50. According to surveys conducted by Pew Research Center, an estimated 32% of seniors over the age of 65 used the internet at the time of the website’s launch compared to 86% of young adults aged 18 to 29. While the share of seniors on the internet has doubled over the past decade, Eons failed to gain traction and was sold to Crew Media in 2011.

49. Supertrain

• Company: NBC

When NBC’s “Supertrain” premiered in 1979, it was the most expensive TV series ever aired. Set aboard a nuclear-powered train that travels between New York City and Los Angeles at speeds nearing 200 miles an hour, the show’s production required a model train set that cost around $3 million in today’s dollars. The model crashed during its first demonstration, and the show as a whole soon followed. Debuting to poor ratings and negative reviews, “Supertrain” was cancelled after just nine episodes.

50. Galaxy Note 7

• Company: Samsung
• Year introduced: 2016
• What it was: Tablet phone

Samsung, which has overtaken Apple in the smartphone market last year, also had one of (the larger and--optional) more recent product flops. The Note S7, a phablet that launched in August 2016, was initially well received. However, it had a serious flaw. A problem with the battery software resulted in the phones catching fire on several occasions, including once on a SouthWest Airlines flight, which had to be evacuated. Soon, the Department of Transportation made it illegal to bring a Note 7 on a commercial flight. By October, after an extremely expensive recall, Samsung suspended worldwide production of the Note 7. The company lost what is estimated to be over $3 billion due to the debacle, and Apple once again took the lead in the global smartphone market earlier this year.

More: Can you afford that new vehicle? 25 most expensive car models to insure

Detailed findings and methodology

Hindsight is 20/20, and while many of these gaffes might not have been predictable at the time, the reasons for their failure are often much clearer today. The reasons for the failures often fall into one of a several categories: overpricing, timing, bad advertising, product flaws, and reaching beyond what consumers of a brand are willing to accept.

Sometimes products are sold at a premium because they offer features competitors do not, either perceived or actual. When customers do not feel a product is superior to another -- rightly so or not -- they will not pay the premium price. While Apple is able to sell computers at a premium today because of its brand perception, the Lisa, introduced in 1983, failed largely as a result of its nearly $10,000 price tag.

Many of the products on this list could have been perfectly viable, possibly even a hit, if they had been introduced at a different time. Sega’s Dreamcast was the first major console to introduce global network connectivity, but this was before every home had a stable connection fast enough to make the Dreamcast viable at the time.

For some flops on this list, it appears poor market research doomed these products. McDonald’s Arch Deluxe was marketed as a burger for those with refined palates, turning away kids, as well as many adults, from the ill-fated item. Coca-Cola completely misjudged the desire of its customers when it changed its classic flavor and introduced New Coke.

Sometimes, brands overextend their reach, introducing products that clash with their image and target demographics. One does not need to dig too deep to understand why Colgate, a brand associated with toothpaste, failed to make its line of frozen dinner products a success. The same can be said for Cosmopolitan’s brand of yogurt, Smith & Wesson’s mountain bike line, or Harley Davidson’s perfume.

Of course, many of the products on this list were simply poorly designed or faulty -- at times downright dangerous. Such was the case with Mattel’s line of seriously flawed Hot Wheels and Barbie computers, or the Galaxy Note 7, plagued by battery fires that caused the phone to be banned on airplanes, recalled, and eventually discontinued.

Despite their disappointing launches, some of these products still exist today. Google’s Glass and Google+ each became the butt of jokes after failing to live up to lofty promises. One day, we may see one of these flops become the product it was meant to be.

24/7 Wall Street is a USA TODAY content partner offering financial news and commentary. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.

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7 Product Launch Fails That Defined 2022

Samuel west, a psychologist and expert in corporate failure, explains how businesses can learn from mistakes like these in 2023..

Even iconic brands that entrepreneurs idolize commit major blunders. From Sony's Betamax to Google Glass and the Microsoft Zune , some of the most successful companies in the world have launched products that failed. While the CEOs who oversaw those infamous flops may want to erase them from their résumés--and our collective memories--forgetting about high-profile missteps would be another error in judgment.

Failure deserves attention, because it is an inevitable side effect of taking risks and achieving progress. That's according to Samuel West, a licensed clinical psychologist who holds a PhD in organizational psychology. West began his research by studying how companies could increase their capacity for innovation. That question led him to the subject that has since defined his career as a psychologist--corporate failure.

"The main obstacle to innovation is often the fear of failure," says West, whose clients have included Deloitte, Ikea, Volvo, Johnson & Johnson, and Mars Inc. "Our society glorifies success to an almost sick extent where failure--which is necessary for success--is stigmatized."

To stimulate more productive discussions about failure and how to harness it, West founded the Museum of Failure , a traveling collection of nearly 160 failed products and services like the Boeing 737 Max, Theranos, New Coke, and Bic for Her pens.

"Putting effort into finding out what went wrong is the most important part," says West. "It's about being willing to have that discomfort at least for long enough to have a good conversation about it."

As curator, he is always on the hunt for new exhibits, so in the spirit of celebrating failure as a learning opportunity, Inc. compiled some of this year's biggest product launch mistakes. No word yet on which of these 2022 missteps could make the cut for the museum.

Walmart's Juneteenth-themed ice cream

For Juneteenth , a federal holiday that commemorates the emancipation of enslaved Americans, companies like Target, Nike, and Netflix gave employees the day off. Other businesses used the date to host speakers or companywide diversity, equity, and inclusion events. But one of the world's largest retailers struck a particularly tone-deaf approach.

Under its private label brand Great Value, Walmart launched a Juneteenth-themed ice cream of swirled red velvet and cheesecake flavors. The carton called on customers to "share and celebrate African-American culture, emancipation, and enduring hope" and placed a trademark symbol after the word Juneteenth . The product prompted outrage from customers.

"It's problematic when white owned brands and companies treat Juneteenth as another commercialized ... opportunity void of any commitments to the [African-American] community," Eunique Jones Gibson wrote on Twitter . The Culture Brands CEO works with agencies and brands like Hyundai, Genworth Financial, and Slutty Vegan to create culturally relevant and responsible campaigns. "I understand wanting to show support as a brand or being concerned about how your stakeholders might feel if you are quiet on June 19th. I'm having these same convos with my clients. But if you lack commitment/investment ... being quiet is best."

After the backlash, the big-box store apologized and pulled the ice cream from its shelves.

Streaming services generate more than awards buzz. The industry is also a perennial producer of cautionary tales. Quibi was the high-profile casualty of 2020. After raising more than $1.75 billion in funding, co-founders Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman announced they were shuttering the mobile-centric streaming service only six months after it debuted. This year, history did more than rhyme. It seemed to repeat when the newly combined Warner Bros. Discovery shut down the streaming platform CNN+ less than a month after its $300 million launch, which reportedly drew less than 10,000 daily viewers.

New York City's dumpsters

In October, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced he was launching a war on the city's greatest scourge: rats. The country's largest city has struggled with rodent infestation, and many blame the piles of garbage bags that sit on the streets until collection. The plan to better accommodate the 24 million pounds of trash produced each day included an obvious and widely mocked product recommendation. Yes, the city's solution was a dumpster . New York launched a yearlong pilot program on one block of West 45th Street in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, to test curbside waste containers.

The trash receptacle failure was twofold, though. The dumpsters became more of a farce when residents learned just how much waste management was costing the city in management consulting fees. In a deal first reported by the transportation-focused outlet Streetsblog, New York City awarded McKinsey & Company a $4 million contract to commission a 24-week study of the city's waste container needs and develop a citywide pilot program.  

Pixel-flavored Coca-Cola

In another sign that brands may be taking the Web3 hype too far, Coca-Cola unveiled a limited-edition pixel-flavored soda in April. In a statement , the Atlanta-based corporation described its gaming-inspired Coca-Cola Zero Sugar Byte as "the first-ever Coca-Cola flavor born in the metaverse" and "a beverage that transcends the digital and physical worlds." The soda was simultaneously launched within the Fortnite universe and in the metaverse. The digital customer experience may have been better than the IRL taste , which was pilloried online .

New Apple Magic Mouse, same problem

In March, Apple held its first product event of the year, and users were disappointed to learn that the new iteration of the Magic Mouse still includes the same old problem that customers have been complaining about for years. The wireless mouse has its USB port on the bottom. That means when it's plugged in and charging, the mouse sits like an upside-down turtle on its shell and cannot be used.

The pervasive design flaw will be enough to earn the Magic Mouse a spot in the Museum of Failure in the future, West says. "It's fun to make fun of Apple, because they're at the top," he says. "You can just laugh at it because it doesn't hurt Apple or anybody else."

Oscar Mayer's bologna-themed face mask

This year also ushered in a number of calculated missteps where companies scored with intentional self owns. The trend was best exemplified by one curious collaboration between a grocery aisle label and a South Korean beauty brand. Oscar Mayer teamed up with Seoul Mamas to roll out a face mask that resembled a slice of its eponymous bologna. Kraft Heinz's foray in moisturizing  reportedly sold out less than a day after its release on Amazon.

West says these kinds of products are meant to be absurd and are tailor-made for social media. "It's designed to get people to react," he says. "In the food products section, that's been going on for at least five or 10 years. Oreo started with making Swedish Fish-flavored Oreos. Who the hell wants to eat that?"

The TikTok Pink Sauce

This year, the best case study of a brand capitalizing on a failed product launch was a condiment. Pink Sauce, the creation of Miami-based chef Carly Pii, who posts on TikTok under the name Chef Pii , became this summer's viral sensation. The spicy, tangy topping, which gets its distinct Pepto Bismol color from dragon fruit, racked up hundreds of millions of views on TikTok with people squeezing it over everything from chicken wings to pizza slices.

For Pink Sauce, going viral became a problem. Packaging issues popped up all over social media. Customers complained of nutrition label misspellings, calorie and serving size miscalculations, rancid-smelling sauce, and bottles that were unfilled or that exploded in the mail .

West says this is a classic case of a business failure, which is always defined in relation to customer expectations. "When things get hyped up so quickly like they do today," he says, "that creates expectations that are impossible to meet, which then massively increases the probability of failure."

In a now-deleted video, Chef Pii apologized for the botched rollout and promised to improve future shipments. Still, the public controversy brought major benefits. All the attention helped the entrepreneur score some institutional help. Pii partnered with the hot sauce company Dave's Gourmet to produce the pink sauce on a commercial scale.

A refreshed look at leadership from the desk of CEO and chief content officer Stephanie Mehta

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15 Biggest Product Failures Of All Time And What We Can Learn From Them

From Google to Apple and from Burger King to Harley Davidson, all have seen some of their products fail. While it is true that these are some of the most recognized and successful brands in the world , they too have experienced product failures. I will talk about them in this article.

Before we get into the list of product failures, let us first understand what it really is. A product is considered to be a failure when its occupancy in the market leads to the following:

• Sudden withdrawal of the product from the market.
• The inability of the product to achieve profits.
• The inability to complete its life cycle.
• The inability of the product to retain market share to continue with its place in the market.

The failure of a product is not always the result of bad marketing or faulty design. There are several reasons why a good product or service may just vanish overnight, while their substandard counterparts may gain success just as soon. I will explain why good products fail in another article.

1. Google Glass

Google Glass seemed like a machine from the future. It seemed like some alien technology in the hands of men. Dubbed as the future of AI, Google Glass had everything that a futuristic device could have. From a built-in 5 megapixel video camera to internet facilities, Google Glass was made to make life easier.

Google Glass was criticized for being unfashionable with numerable flaws just as soon as it was launched. Additionally, people raised their concerns over the ability of the device to violate privacy rights. People also expressed their uneasiness with the device because it allowed users to record video without anyone noticing. In 2015, Google officially announced it would end the production of Google Glass.

2. Microsoft Zune

Zune was launched by Microsoft in 2006 as a competitor to Apple i-Pod. It consisted of a line of media players which could integrate with Zune software and Zune devices. It could also integrate phones with Zune support. Zune successfully partnered with United Airlines in 2010 as their official in-flight music provider.

It all seemed very well planned at first, but Zune failed to attract people. Zune’s biggest failure was the fact that it was 5 years too late to the party. Apple had already entered the market with i-Pod 5 years earlier and provided similar services. Zune was nothing different from i-Pod nor did it provide anything extra to the customers. As a result, Zune was discontinued in 2011.

3.   Mobile ESPN

Launched in 2006 and run by Disney, Mobile ESPN promised exclusive content for sports fans. The application could provide real-time score and promised to be a few seconds ahead of a live TV broadcast. The Sanyo MVP was the only phone available at the Mobile ESPN launch; however, it was replaced by Samsung ACE in July 2006.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, ESPN had fewer than 10,000 subscribers contradicting ESPN’s projected figure of 240,000 subscribers. The reason for Mobile ESPN’s failure, according to experts, is its pricing. Customers did not want to pay $400 for a clunky flip phone along with a monthly subscription fee of $40 to access the content. ESPN shut down the service within a year and lost almost $150 million in development.

4. Amazon Fire Phone

The success of Kindle Fire prompted Amazon to foray into the smartphone market. Amazon declared its entry into the market with the launch of its 3D-enabled smartphone, Fire Phone. Launched as an AT&T exclusive, Fire Phone could track its user’s movements along with identifying and finding useful information for them.  The phone came preloaded with Firefly, an app that recognized user’s activities and suggested items that they could buy through Amazon’s online store.

Amazon discontinued the production of Fire Phone within a year and just after one model. The phone was only released on AT&T which could be a possible reason for the phone’s failure since it limited the number of customers that could buy the device. Most users felt that the phone was average and overpriced and had nothing in it that would have them switch their phones. Amazon had to bear a loss of $170 million on its fire Phone project.

5. Ford Edsel

Marketed by Ford Motor Company and developed to give Ford a fourth brand, Edsel was advertised as car of the future. Edsel had a number of updates and advanced features for its price segment.

Edsels were introduced at the peak of a recession that greatly affected its sales. Some even considered Edsels unattractive and overhyped. Ford had invested $400 million into the car but had to take them off from the market in 1960.

6. Sony Betamax

Sony Betamax was launched in the U.S. for the first time in 1975. Commonly known as the VCR (video cassette recorder), Betamax were available in the market until 2016 when Sony stopped manufacturing and selling them.

 Betamax was far superior to VHS but had to lose the battle because Sony kept the Beta proprietary. This left a huge gap in the market and allowed VHS to outpace Beta in terms of sales and being ubiquitous.

7 . Apple Newton

First to feature handwriting recognition, the Apple Newton was one of the earliest devices in the PDA (personal digital assistant) categories. The first devices were shipped in 1993 and were considered technologically superior.

Apple Newton flopped due to a number of reasons, chief among them being the price factor. Newton’s price started at $700 and the handwriting recognition system did not live up to the expectation. The production was finally stopped in 1998.

8 . Orbitz Soda

Made by The Clearly Food & Beverage Company of Canada, Orbitz is a noncarbonated beverage. It was launched in 1997 but disappeared from the shelves due to poor sales. Unopened bottles are now a collector’s item appearing on online auctions.

The colorful bottles appealed to children; however, they compared the taste to cough syrup. Due to its “nostalgia demand”, Clearly Canada stated that they would launch a limited run of the products.

9. Cosmopolitan Yogurt

In its attempt to foray into the health food sector, Cosmopolitan launched a range of low fat yogurts. The product was aimed at women aged between 15 and 44.

The yogurt market was saturated, as a result Cosmo had to remove the product from the shelves. Was the yogurt any good? Let us know if you remember how it tasted!

10. Samsung Galaxy Note 7

With expandable storage and water resistant technology, the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was, supposedly, an evolution of the Galaxy Note 5. The demand for Galaxy Note 7 was incredibly high right after its launch.

One of Samsung’s biggest flagship phones had a problem that couldn’t be hidden from the world. The phone occasionally exploded! A car was turned to ashes after Galaxy Note 7 exploded. The phones were even banned in flights. 

11.   Cheetos Lip Balm

Introduced in 2005, Cheetos Lip Balm did not have the usual cherry, mint or vanilla flavors. The lip balm actually tasted like Cheetos which, according to experts, was the reason for its failure.

While Cheetos has been a favorite snack for generations, Cheetos-flavored lip balm could not catch on with the consumers.

12.     Burger King Satisfries

According to Burger King, Satisfries were healthier than regular fries since the batter they used was less porous which prevented too much oil being absorbed while frying. However, Burger King could not promote the difference in its restaurants.

Disappointed customers called the Satisfries “saddest fries”, since it did not live up to their expectations. Satisfries were more expensive than regular fries and the calorie difference did not seem to measure up.

13. Harley Davidson Perfume

One of the most iconic and masculine brands in the world, Harley Davidson has rarely deviated from their personality.

The company launched a variety of products in the 90s which included perfumes, cologne for men, wine coolers and after shave. The products did not do well and their productions had to be stopped.

14.   Heinz EZ Squirt

Ketchup always came in different shades of red and has been particularly popular among kids. To keep the children attracted, Heinz launched purple, blue and green EZ Squirt Ketchup. The colorful ketchup became extremely popular after they were  launched but it could not hold on to children’s attention for long. In 2006, less than 6 years after its launch, Heinz stopped the production of EZ Squirt.

15. Nintendo’s Virtual Boy

Nintendo’s Virtual Boy promised to be the next level of gaming experience. The company promised that gamers could experience unbelievable digital environs and futuristic technology with Game Boy. However, gamers were taken aback by the low-resolution graphic and the ghastly red & black digital environs. With gamers disapproving Game Boy, Nintendo had to suffer the biggest flop in its history.

These 15 biggest product failures of all time can teach us a lot about why products fail and the kind of precautions we  should take before launching  products and services in the market.

Key Takeaways

Launching similar products could be disastrous.

While it is true that similar products in the market could foster healthy competition, failing to enhance on the drawbacks of your competitor’s product could be disastrous for your product: Microsoft Zune is a classic example.

Brand overextension

Harley Davidson Perfume and Cosmopolitan Yogurt are a prime example of brand overextension. Brand overextension occurs when a product or service fails to align itself with the brand image. So, if your customers perceive your brand a certain way, it is a good idea to keep it that way.

Overhyping is way too dangerous

While it is a good idea to advertise and market your product or service the best way possible, overhyping could be way too dangerous  as it could damage the reputation of your brand. Nintendo’s Game Boy is a classic example of a brand overhyping its product.

Do the customers really want what you made?

America has been successful because they make products that people want. It is a good idea to find out if people really need your product while conducting your R&D. As a product, Google Glass had everything one could dream of, but it failed to connect with the customers and ended up topping the list of product failures.

While the list of product failures has some great products, understanding how and why they failed may provide you with great insights on the things  that should be avoided while launching your own product and services. 

Besides having grown up in the design Industry, Christiaan has advised some of the world’s largest companies on their branding & packaging designs. Has been the resident judge for design awards, and has spoken at numerous global design & marketing events. Christiaan founded the London office of the award-winning Cartils agency, and has founded the DesignBro.com platform.

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10 Product Management Failure Examples [2024]

In the ever-evolving landscape of product management, success often captures the headlines, while failures—equally instructive—tend to be relegated to the footnotes of business history. Yet, understanding where and why products have failed provides invaluable insights into the intricate balance of innovation, market dynamics, and consumer expectations. This exploration delves into ten notable product management failures, each offering a unique perspective on the pitfalls companies can encounter to innovate and capture market share. From technological misjudgments and poor market timing to flawed assumptions about consumer behavior, these examples serve as a masterclass on the importance of aligning product development with real-world demands and strategic execution.

Related: History & Origin of Product Management

Understanding Product Management Failure

Understanding product management failures is essential for businesses to avoid costly mistakes and align their products more closely with market needs and consumer expectations. Analyzing these failures helps identify where processes may have gone wrong, from inception to launch, and provides critical insights into the elements that can derail product success. Common reasons for failure include misreading market demand, inadequate customer research, ignoring consumer feedback, technical shortcomings, and flaws in marketing strategy. These failures often underscore the importance of a thorough and nuanced approach to understanding and anticipating user needs and market trends.

From these failures, organizations can learn valuable lessons about the importance of robust market research, integrating customer feedback in the design process, the necessity of rigorous testing and quality control, and crafting effective marketing messages. Emphasizing these areas can prevent future product failures by ensuring that new products are well-designed, properly positioned, and effectively meet the target market’s demands. By adopting a holistic approach to product management that incorporates these lessons, companies can enhance their product strategies and achieve greater market success.

Related: Reasons to Study Product Management

The 10 Product Management Failure Examples

1. google glass (google).

Introduced in 2013, Google Glass was an innovative wearable technology that allowed users to access information hands-free. However, it soon faced widespread privacy concerns due to its discreet recording capabilities, leading to backlash and bans in various public settings. The high price of $1,500 and its limited practical applications for everyday use further hindered its acceptance in the consumer market. These challenges led to its withdrawal from the consumer space. However, it later found niche applications in industrial and healthcare environments where its functionality could be better utilized without privacy issues. This experience with Google Glass highlights critical lessons in product management: products that significantly alter social interactions or raise privacy concerns must be carefully evaluated against public sentiment and legal standards. It underscores the importance of addressing potential societal impacts when introducing advanced technologies into the market.

2. Microsoft Zune (Microsoft)

Launched in 2006, the Microsoft Zune was designed to challenge Apple’s dominance in the digital music market, featuring innovative capabilities such as wireless file sharing and a subscription-based music service. Despite these features, Zune struggled to capture significant market interest, which was firmly held by Apple’s iPod and the integrated iTunes ecosystem. The primary reason for Zune’s failure was its entry into a market already dominated by a well-established leader without offering sufficient differentiation to lure users away from the iPod. Zune’s experience teaches a critical lesson in product management: entering a competitive market successfully requires distinct advantages or compelling innovations that provide clear reasons for consumers to switch from well-entrenched products. This case underscores the importance of unique selling propositions and the challenge of competing against strong brand loyalty and established ecosystems.

3. Fire Phone (Amazon)

Introduced in 2014, Amazon’s Fire Phone featured a “Dynamic Perspective” interface, allowing users to interact with the phone through three-dimensional views. It also integrated Amazon services to enhance user engagement with its ecosystem. However, the phone suffered from limited app support, largely because it could not access the broader Google Play Store, relying instead on the Amazon Appstore, which had fewer options. Additionally, its exclusivity to AT&T limited its accessibility to a broader customer base. The Fire Phone was also priced comparably to premium smartphones, which, combined with its limited ecosystem and carrier exclusivity, led to its failure in the competitive market. This case illustrates that successful smartphones need a wide-ranging app ecosystem and the flexibility of carrier options to appeal to diverse consumer preferences and compete effectively in the global market.

4. Coolest Cooler

In 2014, Coolest Cooler launched a record-breaking Kickstarter campaign, raising substantial funds thanks to its innovative design featuring a blender, speakers, and a USB charger built into a cooler. Despite the initial excitement, the project faced severe production delays and spiraling costs, significantly hindering its ability to deliver products to backers promptly. The primary reason for its failure was the significant underestimation of production costs and logistical challenges involved in manufacturing and distributing a complex product on a large scale. This ordeal highlights important lessons for crowdfunded projects: having realistic cost projections and a solid production plan is crucial. Adequately preparing for the scale of manufacturing and distribution required to fulfill campaign promises is essential for transitioning a concept from an innovative idea to a marketable product.

Related: Top Product Management Terms Defined

5. Galaxy Note 7 (Samsung)

Samsung launched the Galaxy Note 7 in 2016, and it was initially well-received for its advanced features and sleek design. However, shortly after its release, reports surfaced of the device overheating and catching fire. Investigations revealed the battery’s design flaws that led to short-circuiting and explosions. This serious safety hazard prompted worldwide recalls and, eventually, the model’s discontinuation. The debacle was traced back to the failure to conduct rigorous safety testing and maintain stringent quality control measures during the device’s rush to market. This incident underscores the critical importance of thorough testing and quality assurance, particularly for high-tech devices where user safety is at risk. It highlighted that cutting corners in product development, especially in aspects as crucial as battery safety, can lead to severe consequences, not only financially but also in terms of consumer trust and brand reputation.

Juicero, introduced as a high-tech, $400 internet-connected juicer, aimed to revolutionize juicing with its proprietary juice packs and sophisticated design. However, it quickly became a subject of public ridicule when it was revealed that these proprietary juice packs could be squeezed by hand, negating the need for such an expensive machine. This discovery highlighted that the device was over-engineered and unnecessary, given the simple and far less costly alternative. The failure of Juicero illustrates a critical lesson for product development: a new product, especially one priced at a premium, must offer substantial additional value over simpler, more affordable alternatives. This case emphasizes the importance of ensuring that technology and innovation directly contribute to user value rather than complicating or inflating the cost of basic functionalities.

7. Segway PT

The Segway PT, launched in 2001, was introduced with ambitious claims to revolutionize personal transportation. Despite its innovative design and capabilities, the Segway faced multiple challenges that hindered its widespread adoption. Its high cost, typically around $5,000, made it inaccessible to the average consumer, limiting its market to niche sectors such as security, tourism, and corporate campuses. Furthermore, the Segway encountered legal restrictions in several urban environments, which prohibited its use on sidewalks and public paths, significantly reducing its practicality in the settings it aimed to transform.

These challenges underscore the importance of considering the regulatory landscape and pricing strategies when introducing innovative transportation solutions. The Segway’s experience highlights that for such technologies to succeed, they must be accessible and practical within their intended markets’ regulatory and economic contexts. This case teaches that thorough market research, regulatory compliance, and strategic pricing are essential for adopting new technologies.

Related: Product Management Case Studies

8. HD DVD (Toshiba)

Introduced in the mid-2000s, Toshiba’s HD DVD was positioned to be the next standard in high-definition video. Despite its technological merits, HD DVD struggled against the competing Blu-ray format. A critical factor in its downfall was the lack of sufficient content agreements and industry support. Blu-ray, backed by a consortium led by Sony, secured key endorsements and exclusive releases from major movie studios and electronics manufacturers, which ultimately swayed consumer and retailer preferences towards Blu-ray. The failure of HD DVDs underscores the importance of industry alliances and content availability in the success of media formats. It highlights that technological superiority alone is insufficient to win a format war; broad industry support and content richness are crucial to driving consumer adoption and achieving market dominance.

9. Nokia N-Gage

In 2003, Nokia introduced the N-Gage, a device that combined the functionalities of a smartphone and a gaming console to capture both markets. However, the N-Gage was criticized for its cumbersome design and inadequate game library. Its phone function required users to hold the device sideways against their cheek, which was awkward and led to the derogatory nickname “taco phone.” The gaming experience was also subpar due to the limited selection of games and uncomfortable controls. The N-Gage’s failure stemmed from its inability to effectively satisfy the market’s needs, performing poorly as both a phone and a gaming device. This case teaches a vital lesson in product design: when creating a product that serves multiple functions, it is essential to ensure that it meets the specific requirements and expectations of each intended market to be truly successful.

10. BlackBerry PlayBook (BlackBerry)

Launched in 2011, the BlackBerry PlayBook was intended to make a mark in the rapidly growing tablet market. However, it fell short due to significant limitations: it lacked essential native apps such as email, calendar, and contacts, which were only accessible through a BlackBerry smartphone via a BlackBerry Bridge feature. This dependence greatly restricted its functionality and appeal, especially to non-BlackBerry users. The PlayBook’s reliance on another device for core features was a critical misstep, rendering it incomplete.

The failure of the PlayBook illustrates the importance of providing a stand-alone product that does not require additional devices or accessories to function fully, particularly in a competitive market filled with alternatives that offer comprehensive, integrated solutions out of the box. This experience underlines that ensuring a product is self-sufficient is crucial in meeting consumer expectations and achieving success in the tech industry.

Related: Top Product Management Tools

The journey through these ten product management failures illuminates the complex interplay between innovation, market readiness, and consumer acceptance. Each case provides a stark reminder of the critical need for meticulous market research, user-centered design, and adaptive business strategies. These stories are not merely cautionary tales but powerful prompts for introspection and improvement in product management. By studying these failures, businesses can better navigate the treacherous waters of product development, avoiding similar pitfalls and positioning themselves for success in the competitive market. Embracing these lessons can transform potential failures into stepping stones toward innovation and market leadership.

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50 Product Management Case Studies

We often wonder what kind of process other product teams have created, planned, and most importantly, how they have implemented it. That is why we at Producter have compiled 50 different case studies for you.

2 years ago   •   4 min read

We often wonder what kind of process other product teams have created, planned, and most importantly, how they have implemented it.

That is why we at Producter have compiled 50 different case studies for you.

Brought to you by Roadmape

1- Rules of Flow for Product Management: an AirBnB Case Study

“Engagement” is a term that is so overused in product management that it has almost lost its meaning. So often I’ve heard from teams, “We’ll measure the success of this test with engagement,” which could mean anything from feature click-through to bounce to we-aren’t-really-sure-this-will-drive-conversion-so-we’re-hedging-our-bet. Underneath, the reason this term has been co-opted and jargonized is that genuine, productive engagement can be ramped toward long-term customer loyalty. And loyalty pays off: a loyalty increase of 7% can boost lifetime profits per customer by as much as 85%, and a loyalty increase of 3% can correlate to a 10% cost reduction ( Brand Keys ).

2- The Psychology of Clubhouse’s User Retention (...and churn)

3- Netflix Q1 ’21 Subscriber Growth Miss: Can We Avoid Another One?

As a data analyst supporting a mobile subscription business , Netflix’s Q1 ’21 subscriber growth miss is a classic example of when I would get called for recommendations to prevent a miss in the future. I thought this would make an interesting case study to discuss my approach to finding insights to drive subscriber growth. Sadly I’m not a Netflix employee and will be limited to publicly available data but the wealth of information on the Internet about Netflix is sufficient to generate insights for this case study.

4- Amazon Go Green

As part of the Design Challenge from productdesign.tips, our team came together to find ways for Amazon to encourage more sustainability on their e-commerce platform. As with any unsolicited design project, the challenge comes with a lack of access to application analytics and technical feasibilities. Nonetheless, the question remains: How might we design checkout screens for an e-commerce app to help people recycle the goods they buy?

5- Quora Case Study – The Wonderful World of Quora

Quora has become a substantive resource for millions of entrepreneurs and one of the best sources for Business to Business market. Majorly used by writers, scholars, bloggers, investors, consultants, students this Q/A site has much to offer in terms of knowledge sharing, connection building and information gathering.

6- Building a product without any full-time product managers

Jambb is an emerging social platform where creators grow their communities by recognizing and rewarding fans for their support. Currently, creators monetize fan engagement through advertisements, merchandise, and subscriptions, to name a few. However, this only represents 1% of fans, leaving the other 99% (who contribute in non-monetary ways) without the same content, access, and recognition that they deserve.

8- What if you can create Listening Sessions on Spotify

Summary: The project was done as a part of a user experience design challenge given to me by a company. I was given the brief by them to work on a feature of Spotify and I spent around 25–30 hours on the challenge in which I went through the entire process, from the research to testing.

9- Redesigned Apple Maps and replicated an Apple product launch for it

Quick-fire question; what is the single most important and widely used feature in a phone — asides from texting and instant messaging friends, coworkers and family? Maybe you guessed right, perhaps this feature is so integrated into your life that you didn’t even think about it — either way, it is your phone’s GPS. It is reasonable to say that GPS technology has changed society’s lives in ways we never could’ve imagined. Gone are the days of using physically printed maps and almanacks, when we now have smartphones with navigation apps. Since the launch of the iPhone and the App Store, consumers have been able to use different apps for their personal navigation needs. Everyone has a preference, and apps have come out to try and address every need.

10- Intuitive design and product-led growth

In 2018, Miro was hardly a blip on the radar in the Design world. Fast forward two years, and suddenly Miro is solidly the number one tool for brainstorming and ideation.

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Producter is a product management tool designed to become customer-driven.

It helps you collect feedback , manage tasks , sharing product updates , creating product docs , and tracking roadmap .

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What is customer segmentation, learnings about product development strategy in 2022, keep reading, boost product management with slack: a comprehensive guide to producter's slack integration, mastering the art of product management: 10 essential strategies for success, what is user research.

HBR Case Study: A Rush to Failure?

by Tom Cross

There is absolutely no reason why the contractors shouldn’t be able to give us rapid product development and flawless products—speed and quality both,” David MacDonagle said as he tried to light a cigarette. The warm wind, portending rain, kept blowing out his matches. Finally he gave up and slipped the cigarette back in his pocket.

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Product Failure – Definition, Reasons and 19 Examples

May 3, 2021 | By Hitesh Bhasin | Filed Under: Marketing

Table of Contents

What is Product Failure?

Definition: Product failure is the product’s inability to establish itself well and persist in the market which could be a result of poor performance or poor marketing of the product.

Product flops lead to the withdrawal of the product from the market due to different reasons such as

• A product not being able to realize the required market share to sustain its presence in the market
• A product not being able to get the anticipated life cycle as defined by the organization
• The ultimate failure of a product in not achieving profitability at all

Product failures are the state or condition of not meeting the intended objective or expectations of people. This can be viewed as a failure of the product.

Product failures occur when a new product after its launch fails to gain an adequate amount of sales, leading to its loss.

When a product does not manage to recover its cost and the amount of money used for its marketing, then the product is said to be a huge failure. The failure of a product is most often realized in its utilization phase.

Sometimes, products look great on paper before they are actually used but fail to satisfy the expectations of the customers. When this happens, the organization fails or experiences certain financial trouble that prohibits it from meeting its profitability objectives.

By analyzing product failures, the organization can plan and implement things that they learned from previous product failures’ mistakes. The primary aim is to learn from product failures so that product development and implementation would be more successful in the future.

Common reasons for Product Failures of Existing Products

Many reasons could lead to the failure of a product. Some of them are

1. Lack of product uniqueness

If a product produced has features exactly as products that are already available, it leads to its failure.

2. High price tag

The price tag factor is one of the biggest reasons for the failure of a product. A product with a very high price is very difficult to be sold in a market. People prefer alternative products that have a lesser price than high priced products.

3. Poor timing

For a product to be successful , it is important for it to be released at the correct time. If the product is introduced when the product is not needed, then this leads to the product’s failure.

4. Poor planning

Failure of a company to make plans about every stage of a product’s life will lead to the product’s failure. They must plan to take care of their customers

5. Lack of promotional measures

It is important to promote or popularize the product in its introduction stage. Failure in doing so would cause a great loss to the organization.

In addition to these, there are some common instances when a new product flops. Let us have a look at common reasons behind the failures of new products-

Reasons for new Product Failures

According to some studies by industry, it is estimated that around 70%-80% of the new products fail.

Some of the reasons for the failure of a new product are:

1. The product is too new to the market

When you launch a product for which your target market is not ready, that product flops in performing as per the expectations for instance virtual boy or google glass.

2. Lack of ample amount of promotion

Lack of promotion can also be a prime reason behind the severe lack in the reach of the product towards its target niche that will lead to product failures.

3. Difficulty in understanding market basket analysis

When a company launches a product without doing proper and accurate market basket analysis for that product, product failures occur.

4. Product not meeting customer’s perceptions

For a product to be successful, it is crucial that it meets the perceptions of the target customers otherwise it might meet the fate of the galaxy note 7 which was a classic case when a good product flops.

5. Products not being sold to customers who need it

To be successful, it is important it is sold to the right people. But, when products are not targeted towards the right audience, they would ultimately fail.

6. The quality of the product not being good

Products with inferior quality will always struggle to exist and sustain in the market, and they will fail in any case.

7. Failure in understanding customers’ needs and wants

When a product is launched or introduced without the proper understanding of the needs and wants of the target customers, it fails.

8. Poor execution of the product

When a product is not executed properly by paying heed to all the associated factors, it leads to product failures.

9. Fixing a problem that doesn’t even exist

When a product tries to solve a problem that does not exist or not quite evident to the target audiences, it might head towards failures.

Examples of Product Failures

Despite the efforts made by the organizations and the marketers, some products eventually fail.

Some of the examples of product failures are

1. Google Glass

Launched in 2013, Google Glass did not last long as long as Google had expected.

Google glass was way ahead of its time. After two years of disappointing sales, Google discontinued the development of Google glass.

This product struggled due to its high price, low battery life, and privacy concerns. – And that is why Google glass is in the first place of our top product failures around the world.

2. Kitchen Entrees

Kitchen Entrees which was a frozen meal launched by Colgate was a huge flop.

People naturally link the Colgate name with toothpaste; it was difficult for people to accept a frozen meal with the Colgate logo. – And that is why it is one of the biggest new product failures.

3. Galaxy Note 7

Launched by Samsung , Galaxy Note 7 was very well received initially.

But there was a serious problem with the phone’s battery. It caught fire on several occasions. Due to this, it was banned in certain places. Soon Samsung suspended its production.

4. Sony Airboard

Sony Airboard was an iPad that had some interesting features.

It was launched in the year 2004.

After four years from its launch, the product was discontinued because of its high price.

5. Satisfries

Burger King had introduced a healthier alternative for fries.

But it failed to convey the difference to its customers. So the company discontinued these fries less than a year after they were introduced.

6. Coca Cola

Coca Cola has a list of product failures that deserve to be in this list of product failures. Let us have a look upon some of those-

a. New Coke

New Coke can be understood as the poster boy for Coca Cola product failures.

In the year 1985, while trying to boost sales and “refresh” its classic soft drink, Coca-Cola retired its tried-and-true recipe and came up with “New Coke.” But the product was a big flop.

b. Dasani (in the UK)

Dasani water is a Coca-Cola product that works well in the USA but it was a big failure when Coke tried to introduce Dasani in the United Kingdom.

c. Coca-Cola Blak

It was a coffee-flavoured Coke released in the United States is another example of product failures. It was a drink that got introduced before its time.

d. Coca-Cola C2

This is again a classic example of a product destined to fail, as its target audience was men ages 20 to 40 but they ultimately thought that drinking diet soda is a feminine trait.

7. Virtual Boy

Virtual Boy which is Nintendo ’s VR headset from 1995 failed spectacularly, and that is why it is one of the most popular examples of product failures.

The company released the Virtual Boy console but the problem with this Virtual Boy VR handset was that it didn’t technically count as virtual reality. The virtual boy offered gamers a 3D experience they couldn’t find in handheld devices or TV screens but it was not up to the mark.

That is why Virtual Boy didn’t click with its target audiences. Ultimately Virtual Boy was discontinued less than a year after its debut.

With 770,000+ units sold, Virtual Boy is understood as Nintendo’s worst-selling console of all time.

8. Touch of Yogurt Shampoo

The key reason behind the failure of Clairol Touch of Yogurt Shampoo was not being able to explain the product features adeptly because using dairy products in your hair wasn’t correctly explained too well.

The product was way ahead of its time, as in 1979, using food-based or natural products was not normal.

9. Frito Lay Wow Chips

Wow, chips from Frito Lay didn’t work out the way Frito-Lay was hoping.

The company tried to fry them in olestra instead of oil, but later olestra started leaving some not-so-nice side effects like diarrhea, stomach cramping, etc. that failed this product.

10. Coors Rocky Mountain

Coors that used to make beer with branding as “cold brewed with pure rocky mountains spring water” came up with a line of sparkling water in 1990 which was a massive failure.

11. Crystal Pepsi

Crystal Pepsi introduced in 1992-1993 was also an effort to shift the usual brand practice in which Pepsi lost its rich brown color which turned it into a failed product.

12. Windows Vista

Windows Vista failed because of the significant change Windows made to the kernel and core software.

Microsoft disregarded that fact when it released Windows Vista, different existing software and hardware were not compatible with Vista.

13. Fire Phone

Two months after the release of the Amazon Fire Phone, it was quite evident that it was a failed product.

Customers gave Fire phone 2.6 out of 5 stars. Reviewers and termed Fire phone as “forgettable” and “mediocre.”

14. Facebook Home

Facebook ’s new product for mobile Facebook home was a big flop.

It was built by iPhone users, and it could not serve the Android users who enjoy using features like docs, widgets, app folders, etc.

15. Arch Deluxe McDonald’s Burgers

In 1996, McDonald’s came up with this new product- Arch Deluxe burger to target urban sophisticates by marketing it as a Burger with the Grown-up taste.

Despite so much branding and advertising spending, Arch Deluxe burger failed to win the hearts of its audiences and ultimately it was discontinued in 2000.

16. Frito-Lay Lemonade

After snacking on a bag of Lay’s potato chips, thirst is always there which the Frito-Lay tried to capitalize with a new product- a drink named Lemonade.

But consumers of the brand always associated it with its salty and crunchy snacks. This lead to the failure of this product.

17. Microsoft Zune

Microsoft came up with a portable media player that was first launched in November 2006.

It was failed because of bad timing, insufficient marketing, and lack of innovation.

18. Cosmopolitan Yogurt

Cosmopolitan, an international magazine came up with a totally different product i.e. cosmopolitan yogurt that too at a higher price tag than the competitors.

Lack of competitor analysis , market research , and unfamiliar territory ultimately compelled Cosmopolitan to discontinue it.

19. General Motors

From 5% market share in the year 2010, GM reached 1% market share in the year 2016.

They could not understand the wants of Indian users. The company was targeting the middle-class market but they could not understand their preferences for cost-effective, aspirational, and comfortable cars.

Here is a video by Marketing91 on Product Failure.

How to prevent Product Failures?

Understanding product failures is essential to prevent future failures.

Studying the history of a product helps in the success of the product and thereby the organization’s success. Some of the measures to prevent product failures are:

1. Product should be in Demand

The organization and marketer should ensure that the product they sell or market is in demand.

2. Product should not have inherent defects

Before the launch of the product, the company must make sure that the product has no inherent defects.

3. Have top-notch product quality

The quality of the product should be high.

4. Get quality certifications

In the case of industrial goods, it is beneficial to get quality certification from the International Standards Organization.

5. Do not introduce identical products

The company should make sure that identical products are not introduced in the market.

6. Spare parts and service centres should be there in the market

It is important to make the spare parts of the product available in the market at fair prices.

Conclusion!

On the concluding note, we hope you would have understood what is product failure and why it occurs.

The aforementioned examples of drastic product failures are great learning lessons for those who are planning to launch a new product.

From Google to Amazon to Microsoft to GM, all sorts of companies have faced great product failures.

So, taking lessons from the failures and then introducing fool-proof products in the market with proper market analysis would help you optimize the success ratio of your products.

Liked this post? Check out the complete series on Marketing

Related posts:

• What is a product – Product definition – Define a product
• Coca Cola Brand Failure
• A Study on McDonald’s Arch Deluxe Burger Brand Failure
• Marginal Product: Definition and Examples of Marginal Product Explained
• What is Product Design? Definition, History & How to Become a Product Designer
• Buyer’s Remorse: Definition, Meaning, Reasons and Prevention
• Product mix and Product line
• Product line competition – How to compete on the basis of Product lines?
• What is Product Demonstration? Types of Product Demonstration
• Ways To Sell A Product – Top 10 Ways To Sell A Product

About Hitesh Bhasin

Hitesh Bhasin is the CEO of Marketing91 and has over a decade of experience in the marketing field. He is an accomplished author of thousands of insightful articles, including in-depth analyses of brands and companies. Holding an MBA in Marketing, Hitesh manages several offline ventures, where he applies all the concepts of Marketing that he writes about.

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Case Studies for Product Management: A Deep Dive

We can all agree that applying real-world product management strategies is crucial for success.

This comprehensive guide dives deep into illuminating case studies across various industries, providing actionable insights on critical decision-making frameworks.

Introduction to Product Management Case Studies

Product management involves overseeing a product from conception to production to ensure it meets customer needs. Frameworks like the Product Development Life Cycle provide structure for taking a product through different stages like planning, prototyping, development, and growth.

Studying real-world examples is invaluable for gaining insight into successful product strategies across industries. By analyzing concrete case studies, product managers can understand how top companies conceptualize, develop, and improve their offerings.

Defining Product Management and its Frameworks

The role of a product manager is to understand customer needs and guide development of solutions. This involves research, planning, coordination across teams, and analysis.

Some key frameworks provide processes for product managers:

• Product Development Life Cycle - Conceptualization, Development, Growth, Maturity Decline
• Jobs To Be Done - Focusing on the job the customer aims to get done
• Design Thinking - Empathizing, Defining, Ideating, Prototyping, Testing

These frameworks help structure product decisions and strategy.

Importance of Best Case Studies for Product Management

Analyzing detailed examples of product management in action provides:

• Real-world demonstrations of frameworks
• Examples of product development decisions
• Insights into product successes and failures
• Strategies across industries and product types

By studying case studies, product managers can learn best practices to apply in their own work.

Overview of Industries and Product Case Study Examples

Upcoming sections will explore product management case studies from:

• Technology - Software, hardware, apps
• Retail & ecommerce - Online and brick-and-mortar stores
• Financial services - Banks, investment platforms
• Healthcare - Electronic medical records, patient apps

Specific companies like Apple, Nike, Intuit, Kaiser Permanente will be used to demonstrate product decisions.

What are case studies for Product management?

Case studies provide in-depth analyses of how real products were developed, launched, and iterated on over time in order to achieve success. They offer product managers valuable insights into proven product management strategies across various industries.

By examining case studies, product managers can learn how top companies approached critical activities like:

• Conducting market research
• Defining product requirements based on user needs
• Prioritizing features and functionality
• Developing prototypes and minimum viable products (MVPs)
• Designing effective user experiences
• Iterating based on user feedback
• Tracking key metrics and optimizing
• Developing go-to-market strategies
• Scaling successfully

Additionally, case studies allow readers to understand the reasoning behind key decisions, including both successes and failures. They provide a unique inside look at product development processes through real examples.

Overall, product management case studies enable new and experienced product managers to enhance their approach by learning from past experiences across a diverse range of companies, products, and industries.

How to make structure in case studies for Product management?

Studying product management case studies is a key step to understanding real-world examples of product strategies and decision-making. When analyzing case studies, having a clear framework helps extract key insights. Here are four steps to structure your analysis:

Evaluate the Need

• What customer problem does the product solve?
• How was the need validated through research?
• What metrics indicate the market size and demand?

Validate the Solution

• How does the product solution address the key pain points?
• Were experiments and prototypes done to validate assumptions?
• What early traction or usage metrics demonstrate solution fit?

Set Goals and KPIs

• What key goals and objectives guide the product roadmap?
• How do key performance indicators track progress towards goals?
• What metrics align to the customer and business goals?

Evaluate Decisions and Outcomes

• What key decisions shaped the product strategy and features?
• How did experiments and iterations impact the product direction?
• What final business and customer results were achieved?

Using this structure ensures you gather insights across the product lifecycle - from identifying needs, defining solutions, to measuring outcomes. Analyzing case studies this way quickly reveals the key decisions and strategies behind a product's success.

What are the 4 types of case study?

Case studies are an effective way to showcase examples of successful product management strategies and provide valuable insights into real-world scenarios. There are four main types of case studies:

Illustrative Case Studies

These provide a descriptive overview of a product, business, or industry. They tell the story of a product's development, struggles and successes. Illustrative case studies help set the scene and provide context.

Exploratory Case Studies

Also known as pilot case studies, these are condensed case studies performed before implementing a large scale investigation. They aim to gather preliminary data and help determine the focus, design and feasibility of a larger case study.

Cumulative Case Studies

These aggregate quantitative information from several sites or sources. They compile data in order to answer a research question, like assessing the performance of a product across a variety of markets.

Critical Instance Case Studies

These examine a single instance of intense interest. They provide valuable insights from a business success or failure. For product managers, these help illustrate how even minor details can impact product adoption and performance.

How to prepare for case study interview for product manager?

Preparing for a case study interview as a product manager candidate requires focused preparation across four key areas:

Understanding the Case Study

• Research the company, product, industry, and business context thoroughly to identify potential issues and scenarios the case study may present.
• Review your knowledge of key product management frameworks like market sizing, PRD writing, prioritization matrices, and financial modeling to brush up on core competencies.

Knowing the Interviewers

• Understand the background and seniority level of the interviewers. More senior panelists may expect more strategic thinking vs tactical execution.
• Identify any particular viewpoint an interviewer may bring given their role - engineering, design, growth, etc.

Setting Assumptions

• Clarify any assumptions you can make about the case details upfront instead of getting derailed later.
• Be ready to set limitations around scope, resources, timelines, budgets, or success metrics if not explicitly provided.

Applying Strategy

• Use an open-ended, discovery-based approach for broad business challenges without an obvious solution path.
• Leverage a more narrow, focused analytical strategy for executional cases with clearer parameters.

Following this four-step approach when preparing for a case study interview enables product manager candidates to systematically evaluate the situation, tailor their approach, and demonstrate strong analytical abilities sought after in PMs. The ability to clarify, strategize, and execute under ambiguity is what interviewers look for.

Product Development Case Studies

This section features examples of innovative and user-focused product development processes that led to successful outcomes.

Apple iPod's Intuitive Design Principles

Apple's development of the iPod is a great case study for simple, intuitive product design centered around understanding user needs. When Apple was developing the iPod, they focused extensively on the user experience and identifying pain points in existing MP3 players.

Some key insights that guided the iPod's design:

• Users wanted to easily carry their whole music library with them
• Managing and scrolling through huge song libraries was tedious
• Existing players had complex, confusing controls

To address these issues, Apple designed the click wheel interface to make scrolling through songs incredibly simple and fast. The intuitive menu system also made adding songs easy. And using a compact, hard drive-based design allowed the iPod to store thousands of songs so users could carry their whole library.

The end result was a revolutionary product that felt almost magical to use because it understood and solved core user needs so well. The iPod's intuitive design shows how focusing on user experience over specs can lead to market-defining products.

Iterative Improvement in Google Maps

Google Maps exemplifies a data-driven, iterative approach to product improvement. After launching Maps in 2005, Google constantly monitored usage metrics and user feedback to guide improvements.

Some key iterative changes:

• Added more business information and integrated reviews after seeing people search for places
• Improved driving directions with features like traffic data and alternative routes based on user complaints
• Added Street View and walking directions to address user needs beyond just driving

This methodical improvement process, driven by real user data, allowed Google Maps to completely dominate digital mapping and navigation despite strong competition from established players like MapQuest early on.

The ongoing success of Google Maps highlights that launching the perfect product out of the gate is nearly impossible - you need an iterative process fueled by usage metrics and user input.

Amazon Kindle: Filling the Market Gap

The Amazon Kindle provides an excellent case study in identifying and addressing gaps in existing markets. The Kindle team realized there were no truly great hardware devices focused exclusively on long-form reading.

They saw an opportunity to create a better reading experience by analyzing pain points with physical books:

• Books can be heavy and bulky during travel
• Finding new books means physically going to stores
• Paying for individual books adds up in cost

To solve these user problems, Amazon designed the Kindle ereader hardware to be extremely portable while giving on-demand access to Amazon's massive ebook library.

Additionally, they offered subscriptions and cheaper pricing models for digital content through the Kindle Store ecosystem. This revolutionary approach filled the market gap for dedicated digital reading hardware and content delivery that consumers were waiting for.

The runaway success of Kindle highlights the opportunities in understanding pain points with current solutions and addressing them with innovative new products.

Product Management Case Study Framework

Case studies provide invaluable insights into real-world applications of product management best practices. By analyzing examples of successful and failed product launches, product managers can identify effective frameworks to guide strategic decision-making. This section explores key frameworks evident across product management case studies and how cross-functional teams, market validation techniques, and lean principles contribute to positive outcomes.

Utilizing Cross-Functional Teams

Collaborative teams comprising diverse expertise increase the likelihood of creating products that effectively solve customer needs. Case studies demonstrate that supporting collaboration between product managers, engineers, designers, and business stakeholders leads to:

• Enhanced understanding of customer problems
• Validation of product solutions against real user needs
• Improved transparency and buy-in across organizations

For example, the case study XYZ shows that increased coordination between product and engineering during development boosted software quality by 34%. Similarly, early designer inclusion at ACME refined the user interface and improved conversion rates after launch.

Market Research and Validation

Case studies consistently highlight the importance of upfront market analysis and continuous customer validation to create successful products. Common factors include:

• Comprehensive competitor analysis to identify market white space
• Dedicated qualitative and quantitative market research around problem/solution fit
• Multiple rounds of prototype tests with target users at each product stage gate

The case study for 123Workforce illustrates this. By gathering over 500 customer discovery interviews, the product validated strong demand for a new employee scheduling tool. This market validation supported business case approval to build an MVP.

Lean Product Development Techniques

Case studies demonstrate that lean principles enable effective product iteration based on real user feedback versus internal assumptions. Specifically:

• Minimum viable product (MVP) releases help fail fast and cheaply
• Continuous build-measure-learn loops rapidly incorporate user inputs
• Evidence-based prioritization focuses on the highest customer value features

For example, PlanHub’s early MVP launch gathered inputs from initial users to refine core features rather than overinvesting upfront. This lean approach facilitated quicker time-to-market and product-market fit.

In summary, case study analysis provides frameworks to help product managers incorporate cross-functional participation, customer validation, and lean methods for successful product outcomes.

Product Launch and Marketing Case Studies

This section highlights creative, strategic product launches and marketing initiatives that generated significant consumer interest.

Dropbox's Innovative Referral Program

Dropbox pioneered referral marketing in the SaaS industry with its onboarding flow that rewarded users for sharing the product. This helped Dropbox rapidly acquire customers in a capital-efficient way in the early stages.

Some key aspects of Dropbox's referral scheme that made it effective:

• Frictionless sharing: Users could easily access a unique referral link to share Dropbox with friends and family. The seamless referral integration incentivized sharing.
• Reward structure: Both referrer and referee got extra storage space for signing up, appealing to primary needs of users.
• Virality: Strong incentive structure combined with easy sharing options enabled Dropbox's impressive viral coefficient.

The referral program strategy supported Dropbox's rapid user base growth and helped establish it as a leading file hosting/sharing SaaS application.

Leveraging Slack's Freemium Model

Slack employed a tactical shift from a paid-only model to a freemium pricing strategy. This opened doors for viral enterprise adoption by allowing teams to try Slack's communication software for free up to a usage limit.

Key aspects that made Slack's freemium work:

• Generous free tier: The free version provided enough value for small teams to collaborate. This established stickiness.
• Self-service signup: Smooth self-service signup enabled easy adoption by businesses without sales interaction.
• Virality features: Free teams could invite other free teams, propagating usage. Upgrades were natural with business growth.

Enabling teams to try the product risk-free via the freemium version supported Slack's rapid business growth . It helped position Slack for success in the team communication software market.

Peloton's Premium Positioning

Peloton pioneered the high-tech fitness bike concept with integrated digital content. Its marketing focused on positioning Peloton as a premium product to justify the $2000+ pricing.

Strategic aspects of Peloton's positioning:

• Targeted high-income consumers who valued premium brands as status symbols. This supported the elevated pricing.
• Curated aspirational brand content around exclusive lifestyles to promote product desire. Raked in sales despite pricing.
• Stimulated engagement via leaderboards and social features to lock in recurring subscription revenue.

The premium marketing positioning strategy enabled Peloton to drive rapid sales growth despite its high ticket prices relative to traditional exercise bikes.

Product Management Case Study Interview Insights

Case study interviews are a crucial part of the product management interview process. They allow candidates to demonstrate their analytical thinking, problem-solving abilities, and understanding of user experience best practices. Preparing for case study questions and mastering methods like the STAR approach can help PM candidates stand out.

Mastering the STAR Method

The STAR method is an effective framework for structuring responses to case study interview questions. STAR stands for:

• Situation - Set the context by concisely outlining the background of the case study.
• Task - Describe the problem you need to solve or goals you need to achieve.
• Action - Explain the step-by-step process you would take to address the situation. Show your analytical approach.
• Result - Share the outcome of your proposed actions and how they achieve the desired goals. Quantify the impact if possible.

Using the STAR method demonstrates you can methodically break down complex issues and drive towards solutions. When executed well, it highlights critical PM skills like prioritization, metrics-driven thinking, and cross-functional collaboration .

Analytical Thinking and Problem-Solving

Case study interviews evaluate your comfort with ambiguity and your capacity to structure unclear problems. Interviewers look for analytical thinking - your ability to synthesize data, identify root causes, and balance tradeoffs.

Shine a light on your analytical abilities by:

• Asking clarifying questions before diving into solutions
• Mapping out all stakeholders and components of the system
• Determining which metrics are most important and relevant to track
• Proposing hypotheses before making decisions
• Quantifying the impact of your recommendations with estimates

This showcases your aptitude for breaking down and solving complex product challenges.

Highlighting User Experience Outcomes

While analytics are crucial, PMs must balance quantitative rigor with qualitative empathy. Case studies let you demonstrate user centricity - evaluating ideas through the user's eyes.

To highlight UX sensibilities, discuss how your solutions:

• Simplify or improve key user flows
• Reduce friction during onboarding
• Increase retention by solving pain points
• Improve satisfaction via new delighters

This underscores the customer value created and your ability to advocate for users. Quantify improvements to showcase your user focus.

Ongoing Product Management Case Studies

This section focuses on outstanding examples of continually evolving products by listening to users and proactively addressing their needs.

Duolingo: Mastering App Gamification

Duolingo has refined their app over time to balance user enjoyment and motivation to drive engagement. For example, they introduced timed practice sessions and streak bonuses to incentivize daily use. They also gamified the experience with virtual rewards and levels to make language learning fun. As a result, Duolingo has over 500 million downloads and has become the world's most popular language learning app. Their case demonstrates the value of continually optimizing gamification elements based on usage data.

Amazon: A Culture of Customer Obsession

Amazon's customer-centric culture focuses on constant refinement of the user experience. For example, they use customer feedback and behavior data to surface relevant products and recommendations. They also optimize delivery speed and convenience through initiatives like Prime and same-day delivery. This obsession with understanding and serving customers has helped Amazon dominate multiple industries online. Product teams can learn from Amazon's disciplined approach of aggregating signals from users and translating insights into interface improvements.

Uber: Strategic Market Expansion

Rather than rapidly expanding globally, Uber tailored its rollout strategy city-by-city. This allowed them to adapt their product and operations to address local needs. For example, they integrated cash payments in India where credit card use is lower. They also customized promotions and subsidies by market to balance growth and profitability. Uber's patient but deliberate expansion enabled sustainable gains that a rushed, untargeted strategy may have compromised. Their expansion playbook demonstrates the merits of crafting versatile products that serve regional variations.

Key Takeaways and Best Practices

The product management case studies explored demonstrate several essential insights and best practices:

The Centrality of User-Centricity

Deep understanding of user needs and putting the customer first were critical success factors across many examples. Companies that made user research and testing core to their process were best able to refine their offerings.

The Power of Continuous Iteration

Few companies got their product right from day one. The most effective demonstrated a commitment to constant iteration based on user feedback rather than striving for perfection at launch.

Innovative Strategies in Action

We saw clever approaches to pricing, promotion and user acquisition. For example, one company offered free plans to students to drive adoption and another used influencer campaigns on social media to increase awareness.

Latest Posts

This article will explore how product management side projects can catalyze professional development by allowing you to experiment with new methodologies and enhance your skillset.

This comprehensive guide promises to equip you with a structured approach to tackling product case studies. You'll gain frameworks to methodically analyze prompts and craft insightful solutions.

Through real-world application, valuable feedback, and community engagement with groups like The Product Folks, PMs can significantly accelerate their skill development and expertise in the dynamic field of product management.

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6 Worst Product Launch Failures (and What You Need to Learn From Them)

Last Updated On : July 15, 2024

Are you on the verge of launching a new product? Or are you still in the process of developing one? Whatever the case may be, you obviously want to do everything you can to ensure your product launch is successful.

That means you need to carefully plan every aspect of your launch – from product development to your product launch promotion. To help you with your product launch planning, here are six of the worst product launch failures, and what you can learn from them.

Product Launch Failure #1: Samsung Galaxy Note 7

One of the biggest product failures in recent years was that of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. Reports of explosions, batteries overheating, and burns were common for the phone. It launched on August 19, 2016, and by early September, Samsung stopped selling it. The brand issued a voluntary recall of the devices, during which they recalled 2.5 million units, according to  Time  magazine.

Samsung then replaced the Notes with new devices, but the problem persisted. Various airlines around the globe started to ban the devices on flights, and Samsung ended up losing $14.3 billion in investments. Although Samsung has since stopped the production of the Note 7, the product had a lasting impact on the brand’s image.

What to Learn from the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Failure

Improper product development was the biggest reason for the failure of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. According to  Wired UK , the problems were due to battery manufacturing issues. One mistake was committed by Samsung themselves, in regards to size. The other was incorrect welding of batteries by a third-party manufacturer.

The blueprint for their device was great. They had everything else in place, but two tiny mistakes resulted in one of the worst product launch failures of all time. Some people even called it the worst tech failure of 2016.

What’s important to learn from this example is that you need to carefully inspect every aspect of your product development before you even set a launch date. Otherwise, you might feel compelled to meet the deadline and rush through some crucial steps. And that could negatively impact your launch.

Keep testing every element involved in your product development, and set your launch date only after you’re sure things are going smoothly.

Even after you set a deadline for the launch and publicly announce it, you shouldn’t hesitate to push it back if there are unexpected delays. It might affect your reputation a bit, but not as much as it would if you launched a product that’s not ready.

Product Launch Failure #2: Fitbit Charge HR & Surge

After the Pulse, Fitbit continued to experience issues with their fitness monitors. The Fitbit Pulse was recalled because it caused allergic reactions for some users. After that, the Fitbit Charge HR and Fitbit Surge fitness monitors were met with a class-action lawsuit in 2016 from users claiming the devices provided false reports.

The  Daily News reported that some users claimed the devices measured their heart rates much lower than they actually were. For instance, one user claimed that the Fitbit recorded her heart rate as 114 when another hand-grip heart monitor reported it as 155. The same user also claimed that the Fitbit reported that she had burned 250 calories when another neck monitor reported she burned 650 calories.

These claims suggested that users may be working out much harder than they should be. And the reports went against Fitbit’s ad campaigns, which used slogans like, “Every Beat Counts,” and, “Know Your Heart.” According to the lawsuit, the devices are, “effectively worthless,” for monitoring heart rate.  Time also reported a study, which proved the inaccuracy of the devices’ heart rate monitoring.

What to Learn from the Fitbit Failure

Fitbit’s products may have been ready, and they may have been marketed effectively to succeed. In some aspects, they did succeed, but they failed to maintain that success in the long run. The technology used for monitoring was faulty and gave inaccurate results. The previously-cited study showed that the inaccuracy was approximately 20 bpm (beats per minute) compared to an ECG machine.

This suggests that they were unable to develop the technology for which they had an excellent concept. While their products worked in theory, they were unable to live up to their claims. Another important lesson can be learned from the brand's marketing message, which implied that the devices provide accurate heart rate reports. They chose a misleading UVP, (unique value proposition), and failed to deliver.

Product Launch Failure #3: Nike+ FuelBand

It seems that wearable fitness trackers just aren't making the cut when it comes to “product innovations.” The idea may be revolutionary, but brands seem to be struggling to turn their ideas into reality. Like the Fitbit, Nike has had their fair share of troubles with their FuelBands.

Back in 2015, the sports brand had to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by users who claimed the device wasn’t providing accurate reports.

[ CC BY-SA 4.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons

The  International Business Times reported that the reason for the lawsuit was because plaintiffs believed the brand violated consumer protection laws. That was because the brand made statements that could be considered misleading regarding the device’s ability to provide accurate fitness reports. Nike settled the lawsuit by providing $25 gift cards or $15 checks.

The Nike+ FuelBand failed due to a number of other reasons, in addition to the inaccurate reports, according to  Wareable . For instance, the brand only focused on iPhone users and practically ignored the other half of smartphone users. It was only two and a half years after its original launch that they launched the FuelBand app for Android users. By then, it was already too late.

What to Learn from the Nike+ FuelBand Failure

Like the lesson from Fitbit’s failure, the Nike+ FuelBand failure teaches us not to make false or misleading claims about what our products can do. But another important lesson from this example is to cater to the needs of all the consumers who might be interested in the product. By ignoring the needs of Android users, Nike failed to tap into a valuable potential market, and that also contributed to the FuelBand failure.

It’s important to note that when you’re developing platform-specific tech devices, you may not have enough resources to cater to the needs of users across all platforms. That means that after your initial product launch, you should set a goal to further expand your reach. Don’t wait too long to target consumers using other platforms.

Product Launch Failure #4: Amazon Fire Phone

Amazon’s Fire Phone also made a mark as one of the biggest product failures of 2014. Although it fulfilled its purpose by helping users compare the best prices of products with just the click of a button, it failed to satisfy certain needs of consumers.

It seems that Amazon was so satisfied with the device’s efficiency, that they overlooked other crucial factors. For example, the design had no visual appeal, which was a major factor in its failure.

In an age where everyone is concerned about looking fashionable while still efficiently completing their tasks, the Amazon Fire Phone just didn’t appeal to consumers. This is perhaps why the retailer quickly  discontinued production of the phone after selling their existing stock back in 2015.

While the device was efficient for Amazon to meet their business objectives, it failed to meet the needs and wants of smartphone owners.

What to Learn from the Amazon Fire Phone Failure

The failure of the Amazon Fire Phone teaches several useful lessons. The company’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, told  Business Insider that the Fire Phone disaster actually turned into a good thing. Despite the failure costing them millions of dollars, he explained that it was an experiment that helped them get closer to success. Bezos also said that in order to make it big, you need to first make, “big and noticeable,” mistakes.

Regardless of what the company learned from their own mistakes, what we should learn from the Amazon Fire Phone failure is to put the needs of users first.

Don't focus on creating a demand for your product. Instead, create products that meet the demands of people. If your product fails to fulfill the needs of your target audience, there’s little chance it’s going to succeed, even with the most unconventional and sensational marketing efforts.

Product Launch Failure #5: Hoverboards

Like the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, the Hoverboard was another tech innovation that went up in flames (pun intended). These self-balancing scooters initially hit it big in 2015.

But soon after their launch, reports of Hoverboard fires started popping up. CNet reported that many of the fires started while the boards were charging. Others occurred while users where riding them.

By July 2016, the U.S. CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) had recalled half a million units in the U.S. It had been determined that the root cause of the fires was overheating lithium-ion batteries. According to the CNet report, hoverboards do not have any safety standards. Nor do they fit into the existing safety standards of motorized scooters.

Top retailers like Amazon and Target made an effort to ensure that each individual component passed a safety test. However, individual components having a safety certification doesn’t ensure the safety of the product as a whole.

What to Learn from the Hoverboard Failure

The lesson from the Hoverboard failure is similar to the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 failure. Both products did not undergo thorough testing. Additionally, there’s also the fact that there were no safety guidelines for the manufacture of these products.

If you’re manufacturing something with no safety guidelines, you need to personally take it upon yourself to run a thorough test. It's important that you ensure that your product doesn’t cause harm to consumers.

Product Launch Failure #6: EA’s Battlefield 1

Battlefield 1 wasn't exactly a product launch failure. It was more of a product launch marketing failure.

The first-person shooter game from Electronic Arts (EA) was set in World War I. To promote the product launch, EA used the hashtag “#justWWIthings.”

After posting just two images, the campaign received tons of backlash and caused quite a stir in the Twitterverse. After which, EA decided to halt the marketing campaign for a while, according to  The Guardian .

One of the images was a GIF of a soldier getting burned by a flamethrower. The caption read, “When you’re too hot for the club.” EA tweeted the GIF with the text, “Weekend goals. #justWWIthings.” The post sparked an outrage, not only on Twitter but on other social media platforms as well.

The second image showed soldiers in a battlefield. It included the text, “When your squad is looking on point.” It sparked less controversy but wasn’t met with much appreciation either.

All of this happened just 2 weeks before Remembrance Sunday. The holiday is similar to Veteran's Day and commemorates the loss of British military in both World Wars. The campaign was clearly very poorly timed. Many social media users expressed their disappointment with it for being insensitive towards people who died during the war.

EA promptly removed and apologized for the posts. But hundreds of Twitter users had already used the hashtag to condemn and mock the game, (as you can see in the tweet below).

When you compare the needless slaughter of millions a century ago to, I dunno, clubbing or something #justWW1things — Jon Brady (@jonbradyphoto) October 31, 2016

What to Learn from the EA Battlefield 1 Failure

As mentioned earlier, the biggest problem with this product launch was the insensitive nature of the promotion. Their mistake shows that product launch marketing can quickly make, or break your new product.

The #justWWIthings campaign didn’t exactly ruin the launch. But it did have a huge impact on the opinions of many social media users, who may have otherwise been potential customers.

During the brainstorming session of your  product launch promotion , you need to carefully plan your strategy. If it’s a sensitive matter, will you be offending people by adding light humor? What kind of humor will best suit the campaign? Are there any upcoming holidays or events that may impact your product launch? All of these questions can make a huge difference in how well your marketing campaign promotes your launch.

Final Thoughts

As you've seen above, many new products are epic fails. In fact, research shows that anywhere from 30% to 80% of new products fail. Frightening thought, right?

When it comes to launching new products, even well-established industry leaders like Amazon and Nike make the occasional mistake. Luckily, we can learn a lot from their failures. Keep their mistakes in mind as you plan your product launch marketing strategy.

What did you think of these products? Are there any other epic product launch failures you'd like to add to the list? Let me know in the comments below. And feel free to connect with me if you want to make sure your product launch doesn’t end up a disaster.

Shane Barker is a digital marketing consultant who specializes in influencer marketing, product launches, sales funnels, targeted traffic, and website conversions. He has consulted with Fortune 500 companies, influencers with digital products, and a number of A-List celebrities.

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Landslide failure time prediction with a new model: case studies in Fushun west open pit mine, China

• Original Paper
• Published: 26 September 2024
• Volume 83 , article number  411 , ( 2024 )

Cite this article

• Jiabing Hu 1 ,
• Shuwei Sun 1 ,
• Yuan Li 1 &
• Liu Liu 1  

Landslides often impose irreversible costs on infrastructure and economies worldwide. Achieving a reasonably accurate forecast of landslide failure time enables the avoidance of human losses, the reduction of property damage, and aids in the development of appropriate countermeasures. This study presents a novel landslide failure time prediction model using displacement-time data as the input parameters of the model, which combines creep theory analysis and a large amount of monitoring data. This model can dynamically adjust the shape of displacement fitting curve by altering the parameters based on the use of the trust region algorithm, allowing it to match the evolutionary characteristics of a landslide. And the estimated landslide failure time was determined in accordance with established prediction criteria. An analysis was conducted on the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of geohazards in the Fushun west open pit mine, with three specific landslide events were chosen as case studies. The prediction results of landslides showed that the estimated failure time for landslide cases I, II and III were March 8, 2014, August 13, 2019 at 8:10 and August 21, 2020 at 0:27, respectively, which closely aligns with the real failure time. These findings demonstrate that the novel model used for landslide failure time prediction in open pit mine has a high level of credibility and precision.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the National Key Research and Development Plan (Project No. 2017YFC1503103). The authors gratefully acknowledge the insightful feedback and guidance provided by Editorial Board Members and Reviewers.

Shuwei Sun received support from the National Key Research and Development Plan of China (Project No. 2017YFC1503103).

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Hu, J., Sun, S., Li, Y. et al. Landslide failure time prediction with a new model: case studies in Fushun west open pit mine, China. Bull Eng Geol Environ 83 , 411 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-024-03902-8

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Top Project Management Failure Case Studies to Know

Home Blog Project Management Top Project Management Failure Case Studies to Know

The majority of project management failures case studies are surprisingly derived from reports published by big organizations. It's somewhat inevitable that large projects attract attention, so when the plans fail, news spreads quickly.

Project managers and other individuals preparing for the PMP exam can use these instances as a reference, which brightens their outlook. It helps them assess what not to do in order to avoid detrimental effects. Also, the individuals get to learn what measures they should adopt on time so that operations do not get derailed from track.

Please consider this blog as a guide to 10 famous projects that failed. Additionally, you will learn why conducting these case studies is important.

What is a Project Management Failure Case Study and Why is it Important?

When we evaluate failed projects case studies in project management, we try to understand why a project did not meet its objectives. These failures can be either associated with significant flaws at crucial levels or an ultimate failure leading to project termination .

Therefore, industry experts prefer to explore case studies to identify decision-making mistakes and potential factors that could lead to similar consequences in the future.

A detailed case study can offer you the following takeaways:

• What mistakes led to inadequate risk management
• What decisions caused misinterpretation of the project’s scope thus leading to unnecessary delays and extra costs
• How monitoring and control aspects failed that resulted in a delay of preventive measures
• Why funding or resources were insufficient at a particular stage
• What caused poor leadership or what were the actual reasons behind negligible stakeholder involvement

Evaluating these pointers can help you spot project warning signs at a very early stage. After that, you can guide your team to bring down the risks strategically.

Through KnowledgeHut's Project Management training courses it is now possible to gather these skills while you’re still working as a full-time professional. Our course curriculum is up-to-date with the latest industry trends. Thus, the content and training modules provide immense value even to the best of the Project Managers who are preparing for PRINCE2 or PMP examinations.

Project Management Failure Case Studies

Are you struggling to fetch failed projects case studies project management   PDF   files online?

We have got this aspect covered for you right here!

Make sure to go through these popular project management failures case studies   for a complete understanding of what actually went wrong.

Case Study 1: IBM’s Stretch Project

Who Failed?

The multinational tech brand headquartered in New York; IBM failed to drop the Stretch project at a pre-planned rate of $13.5 million.

Things They Were Trying to Achieve

From 1950 to 1956, IBM endeavored to launch the world's fastest processing supercomputer, the IBM 7030. The group of engineers hired for the project attempted to build a system that can operate at a 100-200 times greater speed compared to its nearest competitor.

Reasons Why the Project Failed

The team faced too many obstacles while designing and manufacturing the groundbreaking system. Also, there were several loopholes from the architectural perspective that contributed to IBM’s future developments.

Case Study 2: Ford Edsel

C. Doyle, who was the Marketing Manager of the Ford Motor Company at the time, attributed the market failure of the Edsel model to American mid-budget car buyers.

The company fondly aimed towards launching a car that would attract luxury car enthusiasts all over the US.

As per analysts, the vehicle had the right attributes to secure monopoly in the intended market segment. But it failed primarily because of a delay in project deployment. By the time it hit the market, the greater audience had already moved towards compact cars.

Many lessons are derivable from this instance making it one of the historical project management failures case studies .  Some key learnings from this project include the importance of maintaining deadlines, timely communication, and keeping the project managers on the same page.

Case Study 3: Levi’s Type 1 Jeans

Levi Strauss & Co., the world-renowned denim-jeans brand, tried to poach into the segment of exaggerated clothing in the early 2000s. As a result, they attempted running new ad campaigns which totally confused their audience and consequently the sales dropped.

The company’s approach was to introduce a new trend of jeans bottom wear that featured rivets, stitches, and buttons, much different from the contemporary style.

The younger generation at that time was confused about the impression of the final product. As fashion statements are quite fickle and tend to change very quickly, the idea did not sit well with the end-users.

Case Study 4: Apple Lisa

Apple, the tech giant that currently holds almost 24% of the global market share in consumer goods, initially failed while introducing the first-ever desktop with a mouse.

The company aspired to develop a compact personal device that could replace expensive minicomputers or mainframes at that time. For this, they hired trained software professionals and availed consultancy from various IC suppliers.

The project apparently promised a lot of things but ultimately failed to deliver the results. Space constraints became prominent as the computer only offered 1 MB memory. Also, the Apple FireWare floppy disks seemed unreliable. As a result, just 10,000 Lisa computers could be sold over a span of 24 months.

Case Study 5: Crystal Pepsi

Does the idea of clear Cola seem fascinating to you?

Probably not, right?

This concept was actually put into action in the 1990s when PepsiCo launched Crystal Pepsi as an effort to target health-minded customers. Unfortunately, this turned out to be one of the most spectacular project management failure case studies   in the soft drink industry.

PepsiCo introduced a unique taste and marketed it through rampant advertisement campaigns. Also, they stressed the benefits of the drink which failed to gain the expected momentum.

The product failed because at that time the market was starting to get inclined towards energy drinks. Also, traditional colas consumed a large section of the audience who preferred that taste over others.

Case Study 6: Sony Betamax

The second-biggest supplier of cameras in modern times, Sony failed in the mid 1970s while they tried to compete with JVC’s VHS technology.

At that time, the company introduced a consumer-level analog recording device that was marketed as a video cassette recorder. Performance-wise, the average playback times and fast-forward features were working seamlessly for this innovation. But there were major drawbacks that resulted in the project's downfall.

The VCR was compatible with other Sony products only. Also, the Betamax tapes came at a much higher price compared to VHS tapes. Furthermore, Betamax recordings were limited to a maximum of 1 hour, whereas VHS tapes allowed for recording durations of nearly 2 hours.

Case Study 7: Death March Project - Baggage System Disruption at Denver Int. Airport

One of the busiest international airports in the world, Denver International Airport failed.

In 1991, the airport authority made a noble attempt to streamline the time-taking luggage transfer system. Their primary objective was to attach bar-coded tags to baggage in order to fully automate the process. The authorities anticipated reducing the aircraft turnaround time by half across three terminals.

Unfortunately, DIA’s management couldn’t control the cost, risks, and time required to deal with the new system. As the body tied up with BAE to bring in the automated baggage handling system, both organizations assumed different deadlines. An unrealistic 2-year schedule was offered from DIA’s end that led to project underscoring and many detrimental situations followed due to lack of discussions.

Case Study 8: NHS’ Civilian IT Project

Great Britain’s publicly funded healthcare system, the National Health Service (NHS) failed in the 2010s.

The body targeted to revolutionize the health sector through innovations like digital scanning, electronic recording methodologies, and integrated IT devices. In a nutshell, they aspired to build the greatest civilian digitized module around the globe.

The three most prominent reasons that led to this project’s failure included supplier disputes, frequent changing of specifications, and external contractual disruptions.

You can learn about how to avoid these scenarios by joining ours   PMP online course . It is a certified step-by-step curriculum to crack the exam on the first attempt.

Case Study 9: McDonald’s Arch Deluxe Burger

The American QSR chain McDonald’s failed in 1996 after introducing a premium option in its menu - the Arch Deluxe Burger.

The brand tried to mold its menu to make it suitable for the more sophisticated class of audience.

The company gave too much importance to customer data while redefining its new production strategy. Thus, they ended up spending $150 million on advertising. Contrarily, the management failed to track the returns minutely and the demand for the product never reached expectations.

Case Study 10: FoxMeyer Drugs Bankruptcy

FoxMeyer Corporation went bankrupt in 1996 as the company misinterpreted software project risks at a latent stage.

They were trying to automate the supply chain of prescription drugs and toiletries in the wholesale segment.

The project primarily failed while handling mass orders. As thousands of pharmacies depended on the company, they got over 500,000 orders per day which clearly crossed the bandwidth of the software at that time.

Most project management failures case studies give you an idea on how delayed communication can disrupt the results. Thus, while initiating a project, the focus should be towards automating processes as much as possible.

Also, from the top management to ground level, key evaluation metrics have to be laid out for positive impact on the organization. It prevents the staff from going disarrayed and over-consuming the resources and posting errors repeatedly.

However, it doesn’t mean that the failed projects are a stigma to the company. Most successful brands have learned from their mistakes and gathered the spirit to start from the beginning. All the important changes were meanwhile incorporated along the way.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

When you deeply analyze the failed projects, you can realize the significance of effective risk management and timely communication. Also, it is crucial to prioritize 24/7 monitoring and active stakeholder collaboration to ensure previous mistakes do not get repeated

Yes, project management failures may get triggered by unexpected market changes. Even economic downturns and legal implications can impact resources and delivery deadlines.

Project management failures need to be avoided by taking an active stance on roles and responsibilities. If the managers successfully construct a collaborative team environment and set realistic budgets and timeline, then the chances of success increase many times further.

Kevin D.Davis

Kevin D. Davis is a seasoned and results-driven Program/Project Management Professional with a Master's Certificate in Advanced Project Management. With expertise in leading multi-million dollar projects, strategic planning, and sales operations, Kevin excels in maximizing solutions and building business cases. He possesses a deep understanding of methodologies such as PMBOK, Lean Six Sigma, and TQM to achieve business/technology alignment. With over 100 instructional training sessions and extensive experience as a PMP Exam Prep Instructor at KnowledgeHut, Kevin has a proven track record in project management training and consulting. His expertise has helped in driving successful project outcomes and fostering organizational growth.

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Improving new product development (NPD) process by analyzing failure cases

Asia Pacific Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship

ISSN : 2398-7812

Article publication date: 5 December 2016

The purpose of this study is to develop an appropriate new product development (NPD) process of Company “T”, a medium-sized firm, by analyzing the existing NPD process and failure cases of the Company.

Design/methodology/approach

The proposed research framework is as follows: first, prospective studies of the NPD process are performed using the existing literature and preliminary references; second, comparative analysis between the current processes and a NPD process is performed; third, phase-based evaluations upon failed product cases are conducted with a NPD process so as to identify the abridged steps and root-causes of failures; finally, renewed priorities are set forth by utilizing the analytic hierarchy process analysis and questionnaire analysis upon the above identified causes of failures.

The resulting accomplishments include the establishment of NPD processes that resonates with the current states of Company “T”, which, in turn, ensures the increase of efficiency, the decrease in development duration and the strategy of capacity-concentration and priority-selection.

Originality/value

As Company “T”’s development process is outdated and products are developed without adequate market information research and feasibility analysis, the percentage of failed development project is as high as 87 per cent. Thus, this study aims to develop an appropriate NPD process of Company “T” by analyzing the existing NPD process and failure cases of the Company.

• Analytic hierarchy process (AHP)
• New product
• New product development (NPD) process

Kim, Y.-H. , Park, S.-W. and Sawng, Y.-W. (2016), "Improving new product development (NPD) process by analyzing failure cases", Asia Pacific Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship , Vol. 10 No. 1, pp. 134-150. https://doi.org/10.1108/APJIE-12-2016-002

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2016, Yeon-Hak Kim, Sun-Woong Park and Yeong-Wha Sawng.

Published in the Asia Pacific Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

1. Introduction

This is a case study that aims to develop an appropriate new product development (NPD) process of Company “T” by analyzing the existing NPD process and failure cases of the Company.

Company “T” is a medium-sized radio-frequency (RF) business firm which develops, manufactures and sells various equipment and components for both domestic and international base stations of mobile communications. Established in 1999, its main engine of growth has come from the areas of RF connectors and coaxial cable assembly within the scope of mobile communication services.

Mobile communication markets can be divided, according to the level of integration and roles, into system operation (SO) carriers, system integration (SI) and equipment and components. The markets can be also divided by usage into filers, antenna, unit materials for construction work, measurements, national defense and terminal equipment. Company “T”’s business accounts range from SO firms to equipment firms, and the most active transactions come from the components in the fields of filers and antenna for remote radio head (RRH) equipment. Most systems that integrate equipment and components do go through the process of integration, and the time and scope required for the review on each integral production tend to increase. Considering the characteristics of connector components which play critical and basic roles for the telecommunication systems, completion of connector components alone can allow for the next phase reviews to begin. Because of these reasons, development time for connector component is much shorter, and its application potentials are much greater than those of other equipment and systems. Base stations, previously called as BTS, used various connectors and cables in large quantity. But, recent transformation into RRH systems drastically reduced the necessity of connectors and cables. Hence, the inevitable process of evolution was brought in to meet the requirements of increasingly complicated system environments to make the assembly much easier and make the breadth of movement much wider and easier to control. Such system changes necessitated much more vigorous reviews and certification and development. This creates situations where tasks go beyond the capacity of the all staff members and employees. This caused the situation where all these tasks require more than the existing human resources and their capacities. It may explain why the reviews and examination process of product development were repeating the simplistic specification verifications only. Although the lead time for development projects became shorter, Company “T” showed patterns of having to manage increasingly large number of projects.

Managing too many projects caused many challenges for the product development process of the Company “T”; cases of discontinued projects or development failures kept increasing. Even after the completion of product developments, the sales figures, more often than not, did not yield much increase. Overburdening assignments of development projects have caused the processes to overlook the principal check points for marketability, profitability and technological feasibility, and, in some extreme cases, products were not even launched in the market after the completion of development.

It is quite common that a great number of small- to medium-sized firms attempt to launch new products without preliminary planning or market research. Against this background, well aware of such circumstantial connotation, this study aims to establish an appropriate NPD process that fits the current status of the Company “T” by focusing on analyzing failure cases.

2. Literature and practice review

2.1 concept of new product.

There are many contending arguments with regard to the variegated definitions and boundaries of the term “new product”. Crawford (1991) defines that it is “a product for which the company needs a new marketing, and in which the substantial changes are conveyed but excludes any changes that may require simple promotions”.

Booze, Allen and Hamilton set out to make a new standard in 1982 for new product classification according to the newness to the market and the newness to the firm, with six different categories. Also, calculations for relative frequencies at each category were schematized into the diagrams ( Figure 1 ). The diagram is schematized according to each classification of a new product.

2.2 Significance of new product development process and the meaning of process phase

In general, an NPD process is defined as the process of formalized planning or thoughts from the beginning stage of ideas down to market launching. Most of the previous studies on impacts and ramifications of the NPD process have their starting point where the definition of NPD phases is made. Despite the varying degrees of contenting theories, one can safely classify the whole process of NPD into 13 different phases. brain-storming of ideas; early stage idea screening; preliminary market evaluation; preliminary technology evaluation; preliminary production evaluation; preliminary financial evaluation; market survey and research; product development; in-house product evaluation; customer focus group test for new product; market test; financial evaluation before the product launch; and market launch. Studies in the past have proposed that the decision to go through each and every phase of the NPD process itself without any omission would guarantee a significant improvement of new product launch.

Capacity that can perform well at each phase of the product development process has a close causal relationship with profitability. Previous studies show the positive (+) relationship between the level of excellence for the NPD process and the degree of resulting success of NPD. However, the relative importance of capacity in each developmental phase all defers. For instance, Cooper’s (1979) analysis came to conclusion that the most important phase of NPD is the market launch phase and product evaluation by consumers, whereas Mishra et al. (1996) contended that it is the detailed market evaluation/analysis and preliminary idea screening that are the most important phases of the development process.

2.3 Studies on new product development process

This study thus far examined which phases of the previous NPD processes were considered most valuable for the purpose of analyzing the full contents of the current product development process. Second, the study also examined the difference between Company “T”’s product development process and those of the other models chosen from the various product development processes. The following excerpt shows which phases are omitted in the case of Company “T”’s NPD process.

Phase 1 : It is idea discovery.

Phase 2 : It is idea screening.

Phase 3 : It is concept development and test.

Phase 4 : It is business analysis.

Phase 5 : It is the development of the mix between product and marketing.

Phase 6 : It is market test.

Phase 7 : It is product launch.

Dividing rules and standards might vary according to the choices of researchers and companies. But what remains rather identical is the overall flows of each development phases. It should be noted here that different analytic models may cause different changes in total length of process or the contents of each phase, which will eventually integrate into the development processes. Figure 2 shows the role of each gate to demonstrate that products face higher probability of failure if the NPD process proceeds to the next phase without proper assessments and evaluations, thus emphasizing that the gates necessitate preceding examinations and preparation.

A general NPD process goes through each phase from idea management to product concept development and test, to business analysis and marketing plan, to product development and to market launch. This process can be either subdivided or simultaneously preceded according to the company size and particular business characteristics.

However, in the case of Company “T”, the firm is concentrating on the “product development phase in comparison to other NPD cases”. Nevertheless, one shall not disregard the evaluation process of pre-developmental processes such as the possibility of whether the product can be developed with current level of technology and the possibility of whether the product can expand to the main stream items by adding various similar product lines. Such consideration can unwittingly bring out the outcome which disregards the basic processes that could yield practical and tangible results.

2.4 New product development practices among small- and medium-sized Korean companies

A typical medium-sized company such as “T” comes up with the “new product idea” based on clients’ demands or direct order from the company owner, and the product development is launched without much selection processes. Once the prototype is completed, the company would begin to prepare for the commercialization and large-scale manufacturing plans ( Figure 3 ). The figure shows that the CEO is occupying the largest percentage of where the idea of new product and product developments are initiated from. If the product development processes are repeated without adequate studies on profitability and marketability, a series of internal problems tend to rise from within. Sales department will request more and more projects to the research department for the purpose of sales increase. The development department will lose efficiency during the course of variegated product developments without full considerations on priority and strategic importance. The final outcome of such processes would include products with low level of perfection, reduced ratio of development completion AND rise of the employment separation rate for newly recruited researchers, resulting rise of workload upon senior researchers and the failures and discontinuation of projects, which go beyond the scope of product development issues.

3. Analysis and results

3.1 outline of the analysis.

The purpose of this study is to establish an improved NPD process which can substantially increase the efficiency of the product development. To this end, this paper chose to use the research methodology as the following.

First, existing references and prospective research materials are reviewed to recognize and define the concept of new product, the importance and concept of an NPD process and the significance of phased evaluation of performances. Second, the appropriate models and phases of the NPD process are selected for the Company “T”, and the comparative analysis is performed between the current development process and the newly selected development process to identify the omissions and shortcomings. Third, each project was divided into two categories of “success” and “failure” based upon the new definition of “failure” at the stage of each case analysis. It is followed by the performance analysis on each phase of the NPD process based upon the research models that are derived from the selected cases of actual failures that took place, thus being able to categorize the causes of failures. Finally, surveys and questionnaires are conducted to ask for the causes of the categorized failures. These results are reexamined under the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method, and the conclusions are drawn for the evaluation of the different levels of significance.

3.2 Analysis methodology of failure cases

3.2.1 definition of failure..

The objective of this study is to establish an appropriate NPD process that fits the Company “T”’s needs. To that end, the failed project cases in the past have been analyzed with particular attention paid to phase-based actions and the following results of the process. Hence, the categories of failures among the development projects are divided into two. First category is projects that were suspended or those proved to be failed at the end of the development. Second category is when no sales were generated after the completion of development or no profits were earned after the sales.

3.2.2 Classification and selection of the project.

Projects for analysis were selected among the ones that had been processed during the one year term of year 2014. Total number of registered projects was 877 cases, of which completed ones were 209 cases Table I . Of these 209 cases, ones that generated sales were 119 cases (14 per cent), and the ones without sales generation were 90 cases (10 per cent). Also, uncompleted cases were 668 cases, of which sale-generating cases were 73 cases (8 per cent) and no sale cases were 595 (68 per cent). Sales results from the uncompleted projects are by sample supply, not by finished product production.

In 2014, the failure rate reached 87 per cent. With too many failure cases to analyze, the study reduced the total target numbers by way of verifying the ones to be excluded. First, a total of 119 cases that generated sales were excluded. The number of projects that were processed progressively for the purpose of measurement or JIG, review projects, one-time projects, preliminary projects and projects whose details cannot be determined because of the retirement of researchers and the likes were 476 cases in total. Analysis was processed with 80 cases in the sequence of initiation date, out of remaining 407 cases. The guiding principles include, first, the ones that were completed, but did not generate any sales, and second, the ones that did not complete. More than half of the projects excluded from the analysis were originally executed by the retired researchers. They are usually low performers and/or involved in declining product departments. Hence their projects were regarded as less important and by the time they leave the company, the projects were dropped and classified as failed projects. But, as those projects were dropped by the company’s decision, they were excluded from the analysis.

3.2.3 Analysis of failure cases.

As it seems evident during the NPD process, the role of the gate is meaningful at the time of evaluation between the two phases. It cannot be processed to the next phase unless there is no result or the contents are inadequate. It is because the idea at the evaluation can be considered to be a failure. This study made the comparison among each failed case at the corresponding phase levels to see whether each criteria of the gate was performed.

3.2.4 Analytic hierarchy process analysis.

AHP is one of the supporting techniques to help make decisions by providing a structured evaluation scheme for alternatives when objectives and evaluation standards of the decision-making are multiple and mutually conflicting. Widely used for the decision-making with multi-criteria including qualitative factors. AHP methodology was invented by Thomas L. Saaty in the early 1970s for the purpose of assisting a rational decision-making process. Information necessary for the decision-making is collected by disassembling the stratum of evaluation index and alternatives. To determine relative importance of possible alternatives, weighted values of alternatives should be calculated using the pairwise comparison so as to clarify the priorities. It should be noted that qualitative standards are also accommodated for the sake of objectivity. That is, once the instrumentation was completed for the specific issue of decision-making, a pairwise comparison was performed upon the factors that belong to the sub-measurement categories, selected from the perspectives of the upper measurement categories, and such comparison will allegedly yield relative importance and weighted values, thus enabling us to attain priorities of the alternatives at the sub-measurement categories ( Choi et al. , 2008 ). If there are multiple choices of alternatives for the comparison of evaluation index, it normally requires highly complex calculations, for which computation programs can be used for the accuracy and the ease of use. AHP applications encompass most of the establishment activities that relate to the priority-setting such as strategic planning, calculation of weighted value for performance measurement index, location allocation, resource allocation, establishment of enterprise/policy and program allocation. This study segmented and formalized the causes of failures as collected from the case analysis. These formalized causes were put into pairwise comparison by the method of questionnaire so as to identify the key factors for the establishment of process.

3.3 Analysis of failure cases

3.3.1 selection of new product development process model..

Currently available references and preliminary research materials were used to select an analytic research model that can fit the case of Company “T”’s NPD process. These models were adopted from seven-phase model of Booze, Allen and Hamilton. The model was used as a preliminary working pattern for the analysis of Company “T”’s NPD process. The reasoning for selecting this particular model is that it could run the risk of oversimplification if the phases were fewer than seven, which makes it very difficult to review the contents and issues in detail at each phase. On the hand, it could run the risk of unrealistic pursuit away from the original objectives of the research if the phases were too many or too much segmented. It is certain that neither too few phases nor too much segmentation can bring the research outcomes that are expected. If the analysis is conducted according to the size of the company or the available resources, it might also cause difficulties in formulating an efficient NPD process. These are the main considerations for selecting the seven-phase model as proposed by Booze, Allen and Hamilton. Booze, Allen and Hamilton model comprises the following phases: idea creation and selection; establishment of product concept and test; establishment of marketing strategy; analysis of profitability; product development; market test; and commercialization.

3.3.2 Analysis of current new product development process.

Idea discovery or selection phase was missing. But, in-house development evaluations were conducted if there were requests from the sales department or direct orders from the CEO. Most of the projects, however, proceeded to the next developmental phase of designing and development without proper examination and evaluation.

Development process items and contents could not be found in the phase of establishment of product concept and testing.

Phase of establishing marketing strategy did not include any contents and items of development process. In reality, the only evaluation that was done was basic information analysis. In most cases, any concrete target objectives other than the development did not exist. There were, of course, understandings of the target markets, but the competition analysis and exterior environment analysis were not conducted.

Phase of business profitability analysis was substituted with the letters or request with specific details and contents. Evaluation of technological feasibility was analyzed, but, in most cases, any attempts to collect the information about market potential and demand estimation and to analyze the possible financial contribution were not found.

The product development phase was usually included within the development process through reception of development requests, and the detailed contents were identified including the review, verification, validity examination and development completion.

Phase of market test was included in the development process, but mostly within the scope of technological aspects. The review was performed upon standards of client’s request for development and upon the level of satisfaction about product specification. At this phase, some pilot manufacturing was performed to make sure that the large-scale production was ready.

Phases of commercialization and product launch were considered completed by transferring technology-related materials, thus closing up the whole development process. Analysis of defection risk during the product manufacturing and consequential revision was performed, yet any strategies for competition or product life cycle could not be found.

These significant flaws in the Company “T”’s NPD process came from the management style of current CEO and founder. As a developer, he recorded huge success until few years ago, based not on well-developed NPD process, but on his own instinct and discretion when choosing new products to develop. But, as the market matures and the environment changes unfriendly, his decision-making based on intuition does not work anymore. So, it was the right time to assess current process and develop more adequate process of NPD for the company.

During the course of the comparative analysis of the processes, a few considerable discoveries were made that might work very well for the reality of the Company “T”, which has been trying to establish the NPD process. First, the internal consensus must be reached within the firm upon whether a revision of the current downstream development process is necessary and whether establishment of upper stream NPD process is appropriate. The reason that the company’s practice for the past 10 years has become the habit and fixation, and the necessity of discerning the two different processes was never recognized. Second, full mandate and responsibility for evaluating processes at each phase must be ensured so that the supervisors must be separately designated. Third, a rational separation is necessary, because it is impossible to evaluate every process which varies because of the different product particularities and different levels of development difficulties. It becomes much critical that the newness of the product in the market and the newness of the product in the company must be the guiding principles to classify each product development process and to evaluate separately. Especially, it has been noted that in the case of Company “T”, design and performance of the connectors for the base station do not vary too much. Also, the equipment, systems, base stations and the related environments used for the products of Company “T” do not differ much, either. These products can omit some of the NPD processes such as idea discovery, idea screening, establishment of product concepts, test of product and the product developments. These findings are summarized in Figure 4 .

3.3.3 Analysis of failure cases.

Sequence of case analysis is as follows; first, classification of failed projects; second, selection of the failed project; third, identification of the causes and reasons for failure and formalize the pattern of causes; last, conducting surveys and questionnaires to select the categories necessary for the consideration with priority. At this phase, AHP analysis is conducted to confirm the reliability and consistency of the result.

First, this study went through the validation and matching task on the contents of the management register book of year 2014 and on the accumulated sales list on each product of year 2014 for the purpose of establishing a proper classification of failed projects, as seen in Table II . Second, failed projects were selected with two categories; the failure Category © is the ones that are completed but did not yield any sales, and the failure Category ® is the ones that are interrupted in the middle or never made to completion. The total cases were 407 projects, excluding the ones caused by the retirement of researchers and the ones developed not for the direct purpose of product sales. A total of 40 cases were selected according to the failure categories and in the sequential order of initiation date. Third, the reasons and causes of project failures were identified according to the prepared categories.

Main causes for the failure Category © is the most frequent cases (40 per cent) where development was proceeded without much market information and where product development did not produce any sales. It is confirmed that these failed projects proceeded without estimation of expected market size, target price range, practical possibility of large scale manufacturing and the very minimum information necessary for the development process. One particularly interesting finding indicates that the strong capacity of the long-time client can unwittingly work against product sales. The lesson of this revelation is that one must examine and comprehend the market environment and exterior situation of both first-tier client companies and the second-tier client companies. Main causes of the failure Category ® are the cases where the price competitiveness is very weak, followed by the cases where profitability evaluation was either omitted or poorly performed. Detailed reasons why the price competitiveness was weak were because of the poor information on competition companies, which caused the loss of competitive bidding and market dissatisfaction against product price. Lack of research capacities also contributed to the failures. In case where there was no evaluation for the business profitability and feasibility, the level of market information and intelligence was also weak. Also, some products with no potentials for the feasibility were also preceded for the development process.

This study continued with the analysis of the seven-phase gate evaluation for the NPD process, using the above-mentioned failed projects. The main findings are as follows: first, it is possible to calculate the failure costs for both expenditure and time at each phase if the concept of NPD process was properly comprehended or if the project management was properly executed; second, it is possible to calculate the additional failure costs for the cases of product completion without sales if the failure costs of the previous projects can be assessed. This is the direct consequence of the negligence toward the obviously expected failures. If those projects improperly executed at the very first phase could be decisively stopped in the middle of the development process, the additional costs could have been saved and the focus could have been rendered for the projects with higher probability for success.

3.3.4 Findings through analytic hierarchy process analysis.

Causes of the project failures have been identified based upon the case analysis. Of the cases in the Category ©, the prominent reasons included the failures in market analysis, price competitiveness, bidding failures for the first-tier clients, developmental capacities, disruption of the project earmarked for the first-tier clients and poor managements of the projects. Of the failure Category ®, the major causes included the failures in price competitiveness, commercialization feasibilities, market analysis, developmental capacities, bidding failures for the first-tier clients and disruption of the project. As for the bidding failures for the first-tier clients, the causes included many probabilities involving the price competitiveness of either Company “T” or the clients. If there were clear responsibilities for the failure on the part of Company “T”, the reason for such result was price competitiveness issue. Also, if the reason or price competitiveness of the client company was unclear, then the responsibilities belonged to the first-tier client. Figure 5 shows the summary of the findings.

AHP analysis using questionnaires and surveys was conducted for the purpose of determining the priorities among the important items that are worthy of careful attention while dealing with the NPD process of the categorized failure causes. Survey was conducted for 26 persons from five different departments (sales department, R&D department, technology department, quality control department and production department) Respondents’ average work experience was 13 years and 2 months. Those eight people who misunderstood the questionnaire were asked again to receive the answers. Table III shows survey items to determine priorities among the important items using the AHP methodology.

The results of questionnaires with weighted values are seen in Figure 6 , and the consistency ratio was 0.00896, which is deemed trustworthy based upon the examination of the weighted values of each factor and the criticality and consistency.

4.1 Establishment of N new product development PD process

The NPD process for Company “T” is seen in Figure 7 . It was simplified into a six-phase model by integrating the first and second phases that were used for the research model of seven phases. The biggest reason for such simplification is that the origin of the idea about business-to-business (B2B) products was the needs from the first-tier and second-tier clients.

Evaluation contents at each phase led to the decision of choosing the major projects that must be executed based upon the research contents this far. Each corresponding phase allocated both responsibilities and performance supervision appropriately so as to not overburden the research department to avoid the findings of previous development processes. For instance, at the phase of business profitability analysis, sales department shall share the overall information deriving from client preferences with other relevant internal departments, as it has been the cases. In the future, the task force organization will be formed and will be responsible for conducting marketing or profitability reviews.

At Gate 1, what needs to be identified includes which idea shall be adopted based on customers’ needs and, subsequently, what the customer values should be and what requirements need to be met for the purpose of commercialization potentials from the technological points of view. At Gate 2, product concepts must be defined, and the analysis for client purchase intention must be evaluated. At Gate 3, further considerations must be articulated about future market demands, possible boundaries and scopes for the target markets apart from the existing clients. For the purpose of evaluating the targeted market potential, the timeline of review has to be set at least for a three-year-long period. At Gate 4, as the product development is completed, preliminary financial evaluation is in order based upon the materials from the preceding phases. Preliminary trouble shooting also has to be done in the preparation for the large-scale manufacturing. Accordingly, pilot product needs to be produced and product test has to be evaluated. Last, at Gate 5, post-production evaluation needs to be done from the large-scale manufacturing or from the already launched products. Such information as client satisfaction (possibly including that of the competitions) and other relevant issues must be collected. Also, further evaluation is necessary for examining the shortcomings at the preceding phases or the modifications so as to identify the future amendments for the next product development and for the extended applications.

4.2 Process verification

Performance evaluation for each phase of the failed projects was done to verify the validity of the NPD process. The projects for evaluations were seven in total, which were all completed but never generated the sales, as seen in Table IV . Verification methodology is such that performances of each project and evaluation phases were substituted into the NPD process so as to confirm whether the assigned task at each phase was properly executed and the corresponding results were achieved.

Commercialization of potentials needs to be evaluated first with the technological feasibility as requested by the clients. Most of the products were technologically feasible. To judge whether there are purchase intentions from clients, the information previously collected from that client must be examined and further consideration must be given to future volume of manufacturing, production timing and target price for the clarification. If clients suggest such detailed requests, the client’s purchase intension might be verified. Estimated demands can also be verified with the same methodology as the purchase intention, and the profitability verification must review preliminary production costs based upon the design-related materials. The results of the product test did not contribute at all for sorting out the project evaluation. Marketing strategy, too, did not contribute in a meaningful way under the B2B purchase conditions. However, each corresponding phase will certainly contribute meaningfully if the preceding phase proceeds with substantial integrity, and simultaneous marketing strategy is executed at the same time. Last, validity evaluation was executed persistently at the development process level, but it was evident that the failures at Gates 2 and 3 were not recognized, and further unnecessary resources were invested without interruption.

The results of process verification clearly demonstrated that the projects that are highly unlikely to succeed can be discontinued at Phases 2 and 3 instead of Phase 1. As the purpose of this process is to increase the odds for the project success and make sure the unpromising projects are stopped with substantial evaluation standards, this practice was deemed worthy of efforts.

4.3 Expected effects

The following effects can be obtained from establishing a proper NPD process.

First, the rate of projects failed or suspended will be drastically reduced than the current level. Accordingly, the projects with no possibility to succeed after the launch will be more likely to be stopped in advance, and important projects will ensure much more time and costs. Second, there will be reduction of the incidents adding up the failure costs by continuing the projects without a proper evaluation phase. The fact is that there were frequent occasions where the completion and mass production of the products did not generate the sales, or occasions where fully developed products were not forwarded to the sales department. By establishing the process, sales department staff members will share as much responsibility as the development department members. Third, efforts will increase to secure the references and frameworks of objective and adequate decision-making for the proposition of project priority and its importance factors.

5. Conclusion

As Company “T”’s development process is outdated and products are developed without adequate market information research and feasibility analysis, the percentage of failed development project is as high as 87 per cent. Thus, study aims to develop an appropriate NPD process of Company “T” by analyzing the existing NPD process and failure cases of the Company.

To this end, We conduct our research as follows; first, prospective researches of the NPD process are conducted using existing literature and preliminary references; second, comparative analysis between current processes and an NPD process is conducted; third, phase-based evaluations upon failed product cases are conducted with an NPD process so as to identify the abridged steps and root-causes of failures; finally, renewed priorities are set forth by utilizing the AHP analysis and questionnaire analysis upon the above identified causes of failures. The resulting accomplishments include the establishment of NPD processes that resonate with the current states of Company “T”, which, in turn, ensures the increase of efficiency, the decrease in development duration and the strategy of capacity-concentration and priority-selection

However, this study has some limitations. First, it must be self-evident that the NPD process shall not be limited only to the R&D departments. Rather, it is a company-wide process, by definition, with this limited analysis falling short of cross-departmental examinations, which will bring out much valuable outcomes for the purpose of efficiency improvements. Second, there has been an omission of verification results for the new NPD process that was deduced for the research purpose of this paper on analysis and outcomes. It should be noted that the above-mentioned choices are indeed the superior directions for the market competition, given the limitation of resources and capacities which could optimize the efficiency of the process through verifying the feasibility evaluations upon NPD progress.

The future plans for establishing an NPD process appropriate for the overall environment of the Company “T” revolve around overcoming numerous challenges that have been identified.

First, it must be closely examined whether the evaluation results of each gate were meaningful, as it was verified through the validity tests of the NPD process. It must also be carefully examined whether data of the preliminary market analysis did contribute, with certain acceptable degree of accuracy, to the forecast and the analysis that were performed. Next, the level of perfection and refinement has to be further improved by periodically analyzing the projects within the two failure categories, as it has been done throughout this study.

Classification standard for new product

Role of gate (evaluation) in NPD phases

Leaders of NPD in small- and medium-sized businesses

“T”’s NPD process compared to a standard process

Categorized causes of failure

Evaluation results with weighted value and verification using AHP analysis

Suggested NPD process for company “T”

Classification of success and failure of development projects at “T” (unit: case)

Evaluation of completion ratios for failure Categories <1> and <2>

AHP survey items for determining priorities among important items

Results of verification for the NPD process

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Cooper , R.G. ( 1979 ), “ The dimensions of industrial new product success and failure ”, Journal of Marketing , Vol. 43 , pp. 93 - 103 .

Crawford , C.M. ( 1991 ), New Products Management , 3rd ed. , Richard D. Irwin , Homewood, IL .

Kim , J.Y. and Hahn , J.H. ( 2009 ), “ The impact of NPD (New Product Development) process planning proficiencies on NPD performance ”, Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial Cooperation Society , Vol. 10 No. 9 , pp. 2440 - 2450 .

Mishra , S. , Kim , D. and Lee , D. ( 1996 ), “ Factors affecting new product success: cross-country comparisons ”, Journal of Product Innovation Management , Vol. 13 No. 6 , pp. 530 - 550 .

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Research Article

‘Our project, your problem?’ A case study of the WHO’s mRNA technology transfer programme in South Africa

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliations Faculty of Medicine, Department of Pharmacology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada, Health Justice Institute, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Program of Ethics, Politics and Economics, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America, Information Society Project, Yale Law School, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America

• Matthew Herder, 
• Ximena Benavides

• Published: September 23, 2024
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0003173
• Peer Review
• Reader Comments

In June 2021 the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) launched an mRNA technology transfer programme. With a South African consortium serving as the hub, the programme aimed to increase vaccine manufacturing capacity in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in view of the “vaccine apartheid” that was observed during COVID-19. Following Clarke’s “situational analysis,” the present study assessed whether the mRNA programme differs from the approach and practices that comprise current biopharmaceutical production. Numerous documentary sources, including legal agreements underpinning the programme, funding agreements, and patent filings, were reviewed. Semi-structured interviews with 35 individuals, ranging from the programme’s architects and university scientists to representatives from LMIC vaccine manufacturers taking part in the programme were also conducted. While the mRNA programme may improve the sharing of knowledge, other design features, in particular, weak conditionalities around product affordability, participants’ freedom to contract with third parties, and acceptance of market-based competition, are in line with the status quo. Further, WHO and MPP’s tight control over the programme evokes the dynamics that are often in play in global health, to the detriment of empowering LMIC-based manufacturers to generate mRNA products in response to local health needs.

Citation: Herder M, Benavides X (2024) ‘Our project, your problem?’ A case study of the WHO’s mRNA technology transfer programme in South Africa. PLOS Glob Public Health 4(9): e0003173. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0003173

Editor: Roojin Habibi, University of Ottawa Faculty of Law - Common Law, CANADA

Received: February 7, 2024; Accepted: August 22, 2024; Published: September 23, 2024

Copyright: © 2024 Herder, Benavides. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: In order to preserve the confidentiality of people who participated in this research, but do not wish their identities to be disclosed we are unable to share interview transcripts in their entirety. The research ethics board at Dalhousie University approved this research provided that participants' identities would remain confidential. Inquiries about data availability related to this project can be sent to [email protected] .

Funding: One author (MH) holds a Chair in Applied Public Health, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC). This Chair carries a salary award as well as funding for research activities. However, neither CIHR nor PHAC played any role whatsoever in the design of the present study, data collection, analysis or writing process.

Competing interests: We have read the journal’s policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: Matthew Herder was a member of the Patented Medicine Prices Review Board (PMPRB), Canada’s national drug pricing regulator, and received honoraria for his public service, June 2018 – February 2023. The PMPRB had no role whatsoever in the design or conduct of this research. Ximena Benavides worked for GAVI - The Vaccine Alliance, COVAX Facility, from May to October of 2021, as a Yale Institute for Global Health fellow.

Introduction

In June 2021 Afrigen Biologics, a for-profit company based in Cape Town, South Africa set out to change the global landscape of biopharmaceutical production. Chosen by the World Health Organization (WHO) to serve as the hub of an mRNA technology transfer programme, Afrigen’s initial task was to make an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 and distribute the technology to manufacturers located in other low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The motivation was plain: established makers of COVID-19 vaccines, especially mRNA vaccines, had largely neglected populations in LMICs [ 1 , 2 ]. In view of that “vaccine apartheid,”[ 3 ] building capacity to make vaccines locally for local populations became imperative. The WHO turned to a model of knowledge-sharing that was previously deployed in response to concerns that the global influenza virus sharing network was under-serving people in LMICS [ 4 – 6 ]. Another Geneva-based organization, the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), was charged with managing the mRNA programme’s fundraising and legal needs.

Within six months Afrigen succeeded in producing its own mRNA COVID-19 candidate, “AfriVac 2121 [ 7 ].”. The programme has the potential to be transformative as a model of vaccine production [ 8 ], encompassing both upstream research and development (R&D) and ‘end-to-end’ vaccine manufacturing. Still, the initiative faces several risks, including precarious levels of funding, the looming threat of patent litigation by established mRNA vaccine manufacturers, and a range of governance issues that have complicated the work of an organization created out of dire need—all the while trying to develop the technical capacity to produce high-quality mRNA-based technologies that protect against not only COVID-19 but also tuberculosis (TB), malaria, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and other diseases that disproportionately afflict people in LMICs.

We set out to study, using qualitative research methods, to what extent the WHO/MPP-managed mRNA programme differs from the approach and practices that comprise current biopharmaceutical production. We describe the key features of the status quo as a basis for comparison with the mRNA programme under our findings below. Combining insights from documentary sources, including the legal architecture underpinning the programme, patent filings related to mRNA products, and data from semi-structured interviews with 35 individuals involved in the programme, we find that the design of this initiative is largely in line with dominant approaches to vaccine production, steeped in the neocolonial dynamics that are often in play in the sphere of global health [ 9 – 14 ], and at risk of failing to enhance equitable access even if it ultimately succeeds in one day making mRNA vaccines.

A ‘situational analysis’ of the mRNA programme amidst global power imbalances

Our research followed a “situational analysis” approach—a form of grounded theory, which develops theories through observations and multiple sources of data [ 15 ]. Under situational analysis, data collection and analysis occur in parallel, requiring constant comparison between new sources of data and the preliminary, but evolving, analysis. We describe the multiple sources of data incorporated into our situational analysis below, which has been applied by social scientists to gain insight into complex systems, comprising a variety of actors with diverging interests [ 16 , 17 ]. At the same time, we were cognizant of the power imbalances that afflict global health from the study’s inception [ 13 , 18 – 21 ]. Attention to power differences among the variety of actors and institutions engaged in the mRNA programme, and the multiple drivers of power imbalances, was central to our data collection and analysis.

Document analysis

Multiple types of documents were analyzed by both researchers; a few minor inconsistencies in interpretation occurred but were resolved through discussion. The first type of document was a range of legal documents that codify the relationships between different actors in the mRNA programme, which, pursuant to a memorandum of understanding, the WHO tasked MPP with drafting and implementing. These “programme agreements [ 22 ]” are in place between MPP and the three principal members of the South African “consortium”, that is, Afrigen, another Cape Town-based vaccine manufacturer called Biovac, and the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC). The “technology transfer template agreement,” which served as the basis for negotiations with LMIC manufacturer partners to the hub, as well as the finalized agreements between MPP and thirteen of the fifteen programme “partners” that have signed a technology transfer agreement, all of which are publicly available from MPP’s website (accessed: March 30, 2024), were also analyzed. (Only Bio-Manguinhos (Brazil) and BiovaX (Kenya) have not signed such an agreement). Additionally, research agreements shared by interview participants were analyzed, including a funding agreement between scientists at the University of Cape Town and the SAMRC, a research collaboration agreement between the United States’ (US) National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID, a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)) and Afrigen, as well as sample clauses from Afrigen’s collaboration agreements with entities outside the programme. Powerpoint presentations and other information shared at the programme’s inaugural meeting held in Cape Town, April 17–21, 2023, as well as a regional meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, October 31 –November 1, 2023 were also incorporated into the study. To gain insight into the relationship between countries sponsoring the programme and WHO/MPP, an access to information (ATI) request was filed with the Canadian government, which is the second highest funder of the mRNA programme. Our ATI request yielded 153 pages of correspondence, agreements, and other documentation that we incorporated into our analysis. ( see S1 Letter and S1 Document for further details about our request and the corresponding disclosure package) Finally, a dataset of patent applications as well as withdrawn and granted patents, compiled and made publicly available by MPP [ 23 ] was analyzed to understand the evolving patent landscape related to mRNA technologies in South Africa and other LMICs tied to the programme.

Semi-structured interviews

We used a purposive sampling strategy, contacting individuals that hold leadership positions within their respective organizations or who have relevant experience, for example, in a relevant scientific field. Within the consortium (n = 12), we interviewed executives of Afrigen (3) and Biovac (1), as well as officials from SAMRC and other parts of the South African government (3), and university-based scientists (5). We also interviewed WHO (3) and MPP (4) officials, which we refer to as the ‘programme’s architects’ (n = 7), and representatives from vaccine manufacturers based in Argentina (2), Brazil (2), Serbia (1), India (1), Bangladesh (2), and another LMIC (2), which are now described as programme partners (n = 10). Finally, we interviewed scientists from the global North and other outside experts, businesses, and organizations (n = 6) that have supported or taken part in the programme in some fashion or work in the field of epidemic preparedness. Only one individual (of 36 that we contacted) declined to participate in an interview. The majority of interview participants (29 of 35 that chose to participate) agreed to be interviewed ‘on the record’, allowing quotations to be attributed to them by name. ( Table 1 ) One researcher (MH) traveled to Geneva, Cape Town, Chicago, and Bangkok to recruit and run interviews in person (n = 16). Nineteen interviews took place virtually and usually involved both researchers (MH, XB).

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0003173.t001

Research ethics statement

We received ethics approval to conduct this study from Dalhousie University’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Ethics Board (REB# 2022–6457) and Yale University’s Institutional Review Board (IRB#2000034524). After discussing the purpose, benefits and risks associated with our research, all individuals we interviewed provided verbal consent to participate in the study at the outset of each interview. Consent was thus recorded as part of each interview transcript. All interviews occurred between February 2023 and January 2024.

Data coding and analysis

Consistent with situational analysis, data collection and analysis occurred in parallel. We created memos summarizing key exchanges or text, interpreting both interview and documentary data to identify lines of inquiry and points to follow up during future interviews. MH and XB generated a list of concept areas, in turn, developing a set of situational maps to define relationships between all the entities involved in the mRNA programme as well as key dynamics (e.g., influence of funding organizations; competing institutional priorities) that are often operative in the field of global health and access to medicines. We followed a constant comparative method throughout our research process, and met regularly to discuss uncertainties, unresolved questions, and points of divergence among interview participants.

Review by independent equity advisory committee

Our research process, data analysis, and preliminary findings were developed in consultation with an Independent Equity Advisory Committee (IEAC). Comprised of six members with diverse expertise in clinical trials, global health policy, access to medicines, and bioethics, the IEAC has extensive experience working with or inside organizations, such as WHO, the South Centre, Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, Médecins Sans Frontières, and the Health Justice Initiative. While the IEAC had no direct involvement in data collection, access to interview data, or control over our analysis, it played an essential role in helping to identify potential participants and critically appraising our preliminary findings and, at bottom, ensuring that our approach was attentive to the larger social and political context in which our research is situated.

We first examine the mRNA programme’s origins (2020–2021) and then compare its design to the four paradigmatic features of global biopharmaceutical production, which we abstracted from a review of literature and evidence from numerous scholarly disciplines; namely, 1) weak conditionalities attached to publicly funded science; 2) secret, transactional R&D partnerships; 3) a high degree of financialization; and, 4) market-based governance. Below, we elaborate upon, and juxtapose these four features against, our findings about the mRNA programme following an examination of the political context and policy choices that were made early on during the pandemic yet, as we show, continue to constrain the programme’s approach and practices.

Politicized origins: Building the mRNA technology transfer programme

Foreseeing access challenges from the start of the pandemic [ 2 , 24 , 25 ], WHO became home to several attempts to improve access to COVID-19 vaccines and other needed interventions in LMICs. Each differed markedly in terms of their approach to mitigating access challenges and the actors involved. The first, the “Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator” (ACT-A), was launched in April 2020 by a mix of public and private actors, including WHO, the government of France, the European Commission, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and three biopharmaceutical industry associations [ 25 ]. The vaccine-focused arm of ACT-A, COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access or “COVAX” (governed by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), and WHO), was intended to procure vaccines for LMICs by leveraging the collective purchasing power of high-income countries (HICs). With HICs prioritizing domestic populations at the expense of equitable global distribution, however, COVAX’s charitable approach failed to secure vaccines for LMICs [ 26 – 28 ]. A second initiative, the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP), created by WHO, the government of Costa Rica, and other member states, followed in May 2020 [ 29 ]. In contrast to ACT-A’s charity-based approach, C-TAP sought to distribute control of the intellectual property (IP), data, and knowledge related to COVID-19 interventions. Pooling a variety of technologies through voluntary licenses, vaccine and other product manufacturers could in-license technologies to address population needs in LMICs [ 30 ] rather than depending on vaccine donations from HICs—a move applauded by civil society but fiercely contested by industry, its allies, and the Gates Foundation [ 31 , 32 ].

Meanwhile, individuals inside and adjacent to WHO began crafting a third proposal, predicated on building capacity to manufacture vaccines in LMICs for LMICs. Martin Friede, the WHO’s lead coordinator for vaccine research, and Marie-Paule Kieny, the Chair of MPP’s Governance Board and formerly an Assistant Director-General at WHO were especially influential. Drawing upon a “hub and spoke” model of vaccine manufacturing that WHO deployed once before [ 5 , 33 , 34 ], they envisioned a centralized knowledge sharing system with a view to enhancing local vaccine production capacity in LMICs. Friede recalls how they arrived at this model in the context of influenza vaccines:

[I]t was very easy finding experts in terms of the vaccines because the world is full of retired people used to making influenza vaccines, but […] we realized these were generally quite old gentlemen and they got very tired going around the world teaching the same process at each facility […]. And this is when the concept was born of us creating a central hub, again, a corporate direction of interest. (MF)

Several crucial questions about the design of the model, in the context of COVID-19, nevertheless remained: How would it fit within WHO and the organization’s other newly launched COVID-19 access initiatives? Who would oversee its operations? Would there be one central hub or several spread across different regions? What vaccine platform(s) should command its focus for technology transfer purposes?

According to the lead of WHO’s IP Unit, Erika Dueñas Loayza, the original plan was to embed the COVID-19 hub within C-TAP. On behalf of WHO, Loayza’s team was actively seeking voluntary licenses from COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers.(EDL) Any new IP generated by the hub or its spokes would in turn become part of C-TAP’s pool, thus distributing control to LMIC-based manufacturers as their productive capacity increased. However, as industry opposition to C-TAP grew because of the threat that it posed to IP-holders’ control over COVID-19 interventions [ 32 ], then-WHO assistant director general (ADG) of access to medicines and health products, Dr. Mariângela Simão, and then-WHO Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan opted to “move the mRNA [programme] away from C-TAP to the ACT-[Accelerator]”—an outcome that MPP’s Kieny also favoured.(EDL) Although CEPI was the nominal lead for the “development and manufacturing” workstream within COVAX [ 25 ], it was the Kieny-led MPP that would later assume, in concert with WHO, responsibility for the design, day-to-day oversight, and fundraising for the hub.(CG)

Once positioned inside ACT-A, WHO issued a call for expressions of interest for “one or more” technology transfer hubs in April 2021 [ 35 ]. Afrigen’s chief executive Petro Terblanche remembers recognizing the opportunity: “We are small, but we know tech transfer.”(PT) Terblanche’s strategy of assembling a “consortium” together with Biovac and SAMRC for the WHO application proved wise. Friede describes the decision-making process inside WHO, which culminated in the selection of the Afrigen-led proposal on July 21, 2021:

[T]he WHO’s PDVAC, which is the production and development of vaccines advisory committee, decided that mRNA was the first platform to go for first because of its flexibility, potentially lower cost, and speed with which you could look at different antigens and whether they work or not. […] Then WHO put out a call for expressions of interest to be the hub initially, and a number of companies applied. South Africa came with a consortium, which is the only one that did come with a consortium, consisting of Afrigen as the hub, Biovac as the first spoke and the South African Medical Research Council as the research institute to feed into potentially new pathogens, potentially second-generation technologies and so on. And so that was attractive because they came as a consortium, and clearly also the fact that it was in Africa was attractive to them because Africa was the standout continent of inequity and access.(MF)

Brazil’s Bio-Manguinhos, a non-profit, state-owned company that is part of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, submitted a competing bid. Their proposal contemplated building ‘end-to-end’ mRNA manufacturing capacity, that is, the complete production process—from antigen design to producing the drug substance, drug product, and the fill and finish phase of inputting doses into vials—and then transferring the know-how from one LMIC manufacturer to another.(PN) Sotiris Missailidis, then head of vaccine innovation at Bio-Manguinhos, details how things shifted in the months that followed the Afrigen announcement in June 2021:

Africa was announced first, but I think it’s important to say that, in the beginning, at least, what we had understood […] was that the model was going to be a decentralized model. So there were going to be two hubs in Africa [and] there were going to be two hubs, regional hubs in Latin America. There were going to be two regional hubs in Asia. […] And each of them then would have spokes, potentially, that would be partners that had an interest in producing and accepting the technology. So we applied to be original hub. We didn’t apply to be a spoke, ever. And we got selected. […] What I didn’t know was that, at some stage, […] there was a decision taken from WHO or whoever, that as there was increasing political and financial pressure, many people wanted to come in. […] So the decision was taken to have one central hub and everybody else would be spokes.(SM)

It remains unclear why the change in plans occurred. Bio-Manguinhos learned of their ‘spoke status’ when they visited Afrigen in April 2022—six months after WHO indicated they would be a regional hub.(SM,PN) [ 36 ] The minutes from WHO’s PDVAC meetings show that multiple hubs were still being contemplated as late as November 2021 [ 37 ]. According to Patricia Neves, project manager for Bio-Manguinhos’ center for vaccines using mRNA, MPP officials queried “why are you here [in Cape Town visiting Afrigen] if you are developing your own technology?”(PN) At the time, MPP was focused on securing a voluntary license from Moderna or another more established mRNA manufacturer even though WHO had previously tried and failed to secure such a license.(EDL) MPP’s track record shows that it adheres to the norms of market-based competition and contract-based solutions even though voluntary licenses frequently exclude countries with strong manufacturing capacity, such as Brazil [ 38 , 39 ]. Perhaps this organizational philosophy explains why MPP appeared to be unsupportive of Bio-Manguinhos’ plan to establish end-to-end manufacturing capacity, at least in early 2022. Yet, Missailidis explains why mastering every step of the production process is critical to national health security:

We don’t do fill and finish. We need to have all the technology transferred up to… Well in the traditional vaccines, the master cell bank and everything. And we need to be able to produce [the active pharmaceutical ingredient] 100% properly. This is a condition for any tech transfer we’ve ever done […] because of guaranteed national production in Brazil. […] [H]istory shows that when the epidemics or pandemics or whatever else, you can’t guarantee that you have the vaccine when you want it. […] So, when we spoke, for example, to Moderna for COVID, didn’t even speak with us. Pfizer did, but they were not eager to do a tech transfer, they wanted to do fill and finish. Which we said ‘Look, you know we’re not doing that. This is not our motto. That’s not how we work.’(SM)

Two years on, the mRNA programme continues to evolve. The programme currently encompasses a diverse array of actors, including the South African consortium and fourteen other LMIC-based spokes ( Fig 1 ), which are now referred to as ‘partners’ because of the negative connotations of the term ‘spoke’.(CG) The programme’s architects have also come around to the idea of creating the end-to-end manufacturing capacity first espoused by Bio-Manguinhos and echoed by Afrigen not long after it became the hub. At a meeting in Bangkok in the fall of 2023, WHO and MPP officials outlined potential sub-consortia—engaging partners both inside and outside of the programme—focused on R&D around pathogens of shared, regional interest. In this way, Bio-Manguinhos or other manufacturers that assume the lead for a particular sub-consortium might become de facto hubs for a given target.(CN) Expanding the programme’s focus upstream is also seen as crucial to its overall sustainability given that demand for COVID-19 vaccines is now limited.(PT,CG,AK, MF, CN) Yet, as we show in the sections that follow, a number of choices made by its architects about what commitments participation in the programme entails, what kinds of support should be provided to Afrigen and others, and how the programme is governed, may limit the programme’s potential as a collaborative effort to improve equitable access to mRNA interventions in LMICs. Our analysis reveals that the programme’s relatively weak commitments to access and affordability, preservation of companies’ respective freedom to contract, consolidation of control by powerful actors in Geneva, and deference to the market as the ultimate arbiter of which entities will survive, both resembles the status quo and risks fragmentation within the programme, to the potential detriment of equitable access in LMICs.

Notes : (1) Two participating manufacturers, Biovac (South Africa) and Biovaccines Nigeria, are shown on the boundary between public and private ownership because each entity is a public-private partnership. All other entities depicted in the figure are state-controlled enterprises (i.e., publicly owned) or private companies. (2) For the purposes of this figure, the term ‘experienced’ refers to entities that have produced at least one vaccine that has been licensed for clinical use. Several manufacturers that fall into the ‘experienced’ half of the figure have produced more than one vaccine. The entities in the ‘inexperienced’ sphere have not yet fully developed a vaccine; however, some have generated sales through other products.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0003173.g001

Critical inputs from publicly funded science, weak conditionalities & measured charity

The first defining feature of biopharmaceutical production concerns the limited quid pro quo that the public sector receives in exchange for supplying private actors with financing, biopharmaceutical R&D, and product leads. Despite significant government investments in, and publicly funded researchers’ extensive contributions to the development of vaccines and other products [ 40 – 45 ], weak conditionalities tend to be attached to government and philanthropic funding of biopharmaceutical R&D. Generally, public funding (whether in the form of research grants, collaborative research agreements, or advance procurement agreements) stipulates an obligation of data transparency (e.g., publishing studies). Also, the right of university scientists to continue to conduct research with the technology in question is usually included in IP agreements. But clauses that stipulate where manufacturing should occur, when and where products can be distributed, or how resulting goods are to be priced, are not standard [ 46 – 49 ]. Instead, conventional wisdom is to grant maximum discretion to recipients of public funding, including universities and government laboratories, as well as private actors about how to commercialize biopharmaceuticals. Under this logic, informed by the dominant approach that maximization of profits encourages innovation, the state’s role is not to shape—but simply subsidize—biopharmaceutical innovation [ 47 ].

Consistent with most early-stage biopharmaceutical R&D, the funding for the mRNA programme comes solely from governmental sources. Charged with the responsibility of fundraising, MPP secured financial commitments from France, the European Commission, Germany, Norway, Belgium, and Canada alongside the government of South Africa and the African Union [ 50 ]. To date, these donors have committed USD 117 million to the programme (with USD 89 million received so far (CN), the majority (73%) of which has been allocated to the consortium, including Afrigen, with the remainder (27%) supporting LMIC partners. According to MPP, which holds the bulk of the funds in Geneva, the USD 117 million is “seed money.” By 2026 the programme is expected to be “self-sustaining [ 50 ].” Still, MPP is continuing to seek additional funding, in particular, from the US government, which, in contrast to the WHO’s influenza technology transfer hub [ 51 ], has yet to offer any direct financial support for the mRNA programme.

Countries donating funds—or contemplating doing so—have shaped the programme in multiple ways. Germany, for example, earmarked a portion of its funding for a staff position at the hub. With only German or French nationals deemed eligible for the role by the funder, however, Afrigen was unable to fill the position.(PT) The government records obtained through an access to information request reveal that Canada, the second largest donor country, has stipulated that its funding be allocated to the hub in Cape Town and four select countries hosting manufacturers participating in the programme: Senegal, Nigeria, Kenya, and Bangladesh [ 52 ]. Further, according to one interview participant, while HICs are supportive of transferring technology to LMICs, they would prefer that such transfers do not extend to the more upstream inputs into mRNA vaccine production, including novel LNPs and antigens. Nevertheless, researchers at a number of publicly funded institutions located in South Africa as well as others abroad, including the University of Witwatersrand (Wits), the University of Cape Town and the North-West University, the University of Pennsylvania, as well as the US’ NIH/NIAID, have already made substantial contributions to various aspects of mRNA product development at Afrigen.(CF,PT,PA,CdK,XB)

At the start of the manufacturing process the aim is developing an ‘antigen’ that will provoke an immune response, conferring protection against a given pathogen. For Afrigen’s AfriVac 2121, the lab of Patrick Arbuthnot at Wits drew upon information already in the public domain to design a plasmid, a circular piece of DNA which can be propagated efficiently in bacteria and then prepared in larger amounts to use as a template, and shared it with Afrigen.(PA) NIAID’s Vaccine Research Center (VRC) similarly contributed to the plasmid construction and purification steps in line with current “good manufacturing practices” (cGMP) standards set by regulatory authorities.(XB,CF) After entering into a Research Collaboration Agreement with Afrigen in March 2022, the VRC shared its knowledge and hosted Afrigen scientists for onsite training [ 53 , 54 ]. Demonstrating the value of being part of a consortium, Afrigen will pull in more contributions from publicly funded researchers at Wits, the University of Cape Town, and other South African universities, as it increases its focus on the development of second-generation technologies, such as novel lipid nanoparticles (LNPs),(CdK) and new disease targets like TB, malaria, and HIV.

The critical question is whether the funding that has been secured for the programme and supporting the development of these second-generation mRNA technologies has been leveraged into a shared set of commitments geared towards improving equitable access. The relationships among the actors involved in the mRNA programme are defined by a set of legal agreements crafted by MPP. ( see S1 Table ) Under the technology transfer template agreement and all but one finalized technology transfer agreement involving MPP and LMIC partners, the latter are granted a “non-exclusive, royalty-free, non-sublicensable, non-transferable, irrevocable, fully paid-up, royalty-free licence” to the technology as well as any rights held by Afrigen and the Biovac “to make, or have made, use, offer for sale, sell, have sold, export or import” in their respective territories and other LMICs (as defined by the World Bank) [ 22 ]. In return, LMIC partners must grant to MPP upfront a “worldwide” non-exclusive, royalty-free license to “practice and have practiced the data and the Inventions for the purposes of fulfilling its mission to facilitate the development and equitable access of health technologies” that is “non-transferable, but sub-licensable.” As WHO’s Friede explains, the programme is akin to an IP sharing club comprised of the South African consortium as well as the thirteen other LMIC manufacturers that have signed an agreement to date:

[T]he key objective here is that for us, open means open for LMICs. It does not mean open for [HICs]. So, if Wits can generate some revenue providing a license for use and sale within [the] US, Canada, Europe, Australia, good for them, on condition that for all of the LMICs, there is a fully paid-up, royalty-free license available.(MF)

The programme’s pooled, multilateral approach to knowledge production is rare in the biopharmaceutical sector. MPP’s head legal counsel, Chan Park, notes that this deviation from standard practice stems from the fact that MPP was in a fundamentally different position compared to when it is attempting to secure a voluntary license from a multinational pharmaceutical company to an existing therapy:

When we’re negotiating with big pharma on a drug that they have already developed and are commercializing, our leverage is far lower. We can ask nicely for it and if they say no, we can ask again, and if they say no again, we just have to live with it. But here we’re building it from the ground up. We’re providing the funding, and so we can say, ‘This is a project for [LMICs] and that’s it.’(CP)

Still, there are a number of notable incongruities embedded in the programme’s underlying legal architecture, which run the risk of fragmenting the larger, collective enterprise of improving equitable access to mRNA products in LMICs. To start, some of the partners have yet to sign on. According to Bio-Manguinhos’ Missailidis, the Brazilian manufacturer cannot sign such an agreement because of its pre-existing, exclusive technology transfer agreement with AstraZeneca.(SM) His colleague leading Bio-Manguinhos’ mRNA vaccine project, Patricia Neves, also intimates that the idea that technology developed by Bio-Manguinhos, using funding from the Brazillian government (as opposed to funding from the mRNA programme) would flow to manufacturers from participating LMICs, which in some cases, are for-profit commercial entities, without anything in return is an “injustice.”(PN)

The issue of royalties also proved to be a sticking point within the South African consortium. According to a South African government official, a lot of back and forth with MPP was required:

[I]f somebody has spent 20 years developing a piece of IP, it’s really hard for them to say take it and go and do what you like with it. And a manufacturer can make a markup of 15%, but I’m going to get nothing from it. So that to us was a disconnect that we had quite a lot of discussion around. […] And we can’t just have somebody else outside the country making money offered, but we have to balance that with affordability and access. And that’s the balance we’re constantly struggling to achieve.(XX)

An unevenness between LMIC partners and the South African university laboratories funded by the SAMRC, where the former must share their IP royalty-free and the latter may expect a return, is thus embedded in the programme. (CP,XX) None of the executed technology transfer agreements between MPP and LMIC partners state this; on the contrary, the license granted from MPP to partners is framed as “royalty free.” However, the Grant Agreement with SAMRC grants MPP a “non-exclusive, transferable, sublicensable, irrevocable, worldwide, license to practice and have practiced the data and Inventions for the purposes of fulfilling its mission to facilitate the development and affordable and equitable access of mRNA technologies in low- and middle-income countries (as defined by the World Bank), which license may include a royalty sacrifice.” ( see S1 Table ) Thus, inventions patented by SAMRC-funded researchers, including second-generation mRNA technologies such as the novel LNP, may be rewarded with royalties whereas new IP generated by partners using mRNA technology will not.

A second IP-related incongruity in the programme’s legal architecture concerns the territorial limitations imposed upon IP licenses among different actors involved in the mRNA programme. As the central intermediary, MPP is granted a “worldwide” license to IP that is generated by both members of the South African consortium as well as LMIC partners. In turn, partners (with the exception of Indonesia’s BioFarma) are entitled to receive IP via MPP but only for use, sale, export or import within LMICs. For its part, BioFarma managed to negotiate a “worldwide, non-sublicensable” license to the IP it receives from MPP; it can therefore use, sell, and export such IP globally, but it cannot sub-license it to other entities in LMICs or HICs. That flexibility of licensing IP they generated to companies based in HICs only extends to members of the South African consortium (excluding Biovac as one of the partners). ( see S1 Table )

Notwithstanding the leverage the programme’s funding conferred, MPP also stopped short of requiring that resulting mRNA products be priced affordably for populations in need outside of a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern” (PHEIC). If an mRNA product developed by one or more LMIC partners targets a PHEIC, they cannot charge more than the cost of production plus a twenty-percent mark-up [ 22 ]. ( see S1 Table ) However, none of the pathogens being targeted by the programme’s partners—from TB to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), malaria, and other infectious diseases—are currently designated as a PHEIC. Thus, consistent with industry norms, the mRNA programme does not contractually constrain partners’ pricing decisions. Rather, the assumption is that by targeting LMIC markets, the price of the final product will, of necessity, be affordable; otherwise LMIC governments will simply not pay for it. “Traditionally,” Charles Gore recalls, “MPP has not interfered in pricing. Our model is based on competition, and clearly we are potentially giving this to 15 companies around the world.”(CG, emphasis added)

In contrast, researchers in South Africa who receive funding through the SAMRC must, under the terms of the funding, ensure that any “resulting products”—regardless of whether they target a PHEIC or not—will “be made available and accessible at an affordable price to people most in need within [LMICs].” Revealing differential treatment among participants in the programme, SAMRC-funded researchers and partners with products targeting a PHEIC have agreed to some form of pricing constraint whereas Afrigen has no such obligation unless and until it is in receipt of funding from SAMRC.

Significant questions about the enforceability of affordability clauses exist. Although they have included such clauses for “many, many years,” one South African government official emphasizes, “it’s really an aspirational clause” because “we haven’t had to yet really test that.”(XX) Other funders in the field of infectious diseases, notably CEPI and the Gates Foundation, are experimenting with various pricing commitments, such as “costs of manufacturing plus” a set percentage and tiered pricing (where products are priced lower in LMICs than HICs through confidential discounts) [ 55 ]. (JC) In contrast, MPP appears to be comfortable relying on free-market competition among LMIC-based manufacturers instead of imposing affordability clauses when it comes to products generated by virtue of participating in the mRNA programme.

In effect, the programme’s approach reduces the pursuit of equitable access to the task of fostering more localized production. This is a logical step towards addressing local population health needs. But localized access is never guaranteed, particularly with initiatives that are expected to be “self-sustaining” businesses. Whether local manufacturers ultimately develop and sell their wares to local populations at an affordable price assumes, first, that those same manufacturers will maintain control over how their products are designed, where they will be launched and at what price; and, second, that local manufacturers’ own business models and resource constraints will not compromise their pursuit of localized access and affordability. As we explain next, the web of transactional relationships that Afrigen and other programme participants have entered into may complicate that mission.

Transactional R&D: Testing the limits of voluntary licensing

Under the dominant model of biopharmaceutical production, partnerships among the multiple actors engaged in the development of a biopharmaceutical product—from publicly funded labs to start-up companies, providers of research materials and equipment, contract research organizations (CROs), and large multinational manufacturers—tend to be secret and transactional in nature [ 56 – 59 ]. Whether the aim is to secure research materials such as reagents or lipids, a license to use IP, assistance with recruiting participants for a clinical trial, or purchase outright a medium-sized company with a promising therapeutic candidate, agreements are generally actioned under conditions of confidentiality between two partners, with one typically acquiring the asset of interest from the other. Thus, enclosed , bilateral partnerships — often short in duration—dominate biopharmaceutical R&D. More open and continuous knowledge-sharing arrangements through multilateral collaboration are, in contrast, relatively uncommon [ 33 ].

The original budget the South African consortium submitted to WHO was predicated on receiving technology transfer from an established mRNA manufacturer.(PT) Securing voluntary licenses to use IP is at the core of MPP’s work and philosophy [ 38 ]. The organization “has no intention […] of infringing any patents,” MPP wrote while seeking funding from the Canadian government, “not least because MPP’s key partners for licensing are pharmaceutical companies [ 52 ].” However, none of the HIC-based mRNA companies—Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna, or CureVac—were interested in sharing their technology with the mRNA programme: “They didn’t even want to talk.”(PT) As a result, “the project turned into a green fields vaccine innovation,” that is, “product development from nothing,”(PT) just as Bio-Manguinhos had proposed in 2021.(PN)

Looking to scale up rapidly but “wisely,”(CF) Afrigen began enhancing its own in-house capabilities where possible while outsourcing other elements of the manufacturing process. In order to make the drug substance and then formulate it into a product with the addition of an LNP, Afrigen purchased off the shelf a microfluidic device from Precision Nanosystems, a Canadian firm, to assist with the LNP encapsulation process.(CF) Fenner, Afrigen’s scientific director, details how Afrigen overcame the key hurdle only to change plans in order to streamline costs for its LMIC-based programme partners down the road:

[W]e knew that it was difficult to do LNP formulations and we saw all the skepticism and everything from everywhere else. […] But for us we were like, ‘Well, what was all the hype about really? We have been able to do it.’ So we did use the Precision NanoSystems [PNI] machine, it’s not that difficult to use. […] And if you don’t have access to lipids to do the actual formulation, the company themselves have a lipids mix which is proprietary to the company that they make available to their customers. And so that you can then formulate the mRNA into an LNP. […] Having said that, we decided to not scale up on the [PNI] machine for the actual manufacturing. [T]he reason why we chose [another] machine is because that we thought that it is more simple to operate and that it has a lower running cost associated with it, which would be more appropriate for [LMICs].(CF)

While Fenner noted that Precision NanoSystems was acquired by Danaher Corporation after Afrigen began using its PNI machine, it was not clear whether Danaher’s record of acquiring products and increasing prices, including for a TB diagnostic test [ 60 , 61 ], factored into Afrigen’s decision to shift to another microfluidic device.

To demonstrate that AfriVac 2121 was ‘non-inferior’ to the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech’s vaccines, it is necessary to perform preclinical testing in one or more animal models. The architects of the mRNA programme decided that aspect would be done by Xavier de Lamballerie’s lab in Marseille, France, given that lab’s experience using a hamster model to conduct SARS-CoV-2 challenge studies [ 62 ]. Marie-Paule Kieny, chair of the MPP’s board, explains:

[W]e wanted to have this in a center where the model has been validated internationally. So if Xavier de Lamballerie publishes that these results are equivalent, everybody will believe it. If somebody in Afrigen is saying that it’s the same, ‘Uh-uh.’ So, he’s neutral, he’s independent, he has no skin in the game. So he’s testing the system. And now that we have this, so he has a lot of other studies to do, he will do neutralization of variants and so on and so forth, so this will be one package. And now he is also starting immunization of another batch of hamsters with the Afrigen product, the Moderna product, the Pfizer product, and this hamster will be challenged.(MPK)

When Lamballerie’s preclinical studies of AfriVac 2121 are complete, the hamster model will be transferred to South Africa.(MPK,CF) As a result, “the local university [in Cape Town] is actually being capacitated…there’s essentially a transfer of knowledge and protocols between the two so that in the future we would be able to do it in South Africa.”(CF)

At each turn of the manufacturing process knowledge gaps are thus identified and addressed, often with the help of outsiders. Terblanche reports that Afrigen has at least nine different “cooperative research and development agreements” (CRADAs) at the “active implementation stage.”(PT) [ 63 – 66 ] In some cases, the outsider’s contribution is coupled with a commitment to assist Afrigen or another consortium member in gaining internal capacity, such as the hamster challenge model or performing GLP compliant toxicology studies, which Afrigen has outsourced to a “one stop shop” in India.(CF) In other instances, it is not clear whether the bilateral agreements will precipitate sustained collaboration around a shared set of goals. Meanwhile, mRNA programme partners are striking new deals and funding arrangements of their own. Bangladesh’s Incepta, for example, has partnerships in the works or already in place with the University of Pennsylvania, Afrigen, Imperial College London, US NIH, and the Belgian company Quantoom.(MMA,MK)

It is notable that all of these bilateral CRADAs, funding agreements, and other contracts are the product of the programme’s design. WHO and MPP, as the programme’s architects, have chosen to place minimal constraints upon programme participants’ ability to enter into bilateral agreements with external actors. The only stipulation under MPP’s technology transfer template agreement is, if a partner of the mRNA programme obtains access to IP of a third party, the partner undertakes to “use reasonable efforts to negotiate a licence to MPP for such” third party IP. According to Terblanche, Afrigen has carried those access commitments through all of its CRADAs; where potential partners have balked at those terms, Afrigen has backed away from the deal.(PT) None of Afrigen’s bilateral deals, nor those of programme partners, are publicly available, however.

Participating in the programme is a business opportunity. Serbia’s Torlak Institute, for instance, has offered to sell reagents used during the production of influenza vaccines to other partners during the first programme-wide meeting held in Cape Town in April 2023.(LD) “I think this is the interesting part that we have,” Bio-Manguinhos Missailidis explains, “you create a network that eventually there will be bilateral agreements within the network of people interested in some of our projects.”

Outside actors engaged in the mRNA space have also increased their deal flow by virtue of their connections with the programme. According to Jose Castillo, head of Quantoom, which is known for its machines that automate an early part of the mRNA production process, already counts seven of the fifteen partners as its “customers” and is in active discussions with the other partners as well.(JC) Quantoom’s contracts with the programme’s partners moreover run deeper than simply selling its machines. Castillo recounts how he “knock[s] on the door talking about tech, but the contract I sign is a collaboration agreement”(JC). In return for assisting a partner to design an antigen against a pathogen of interest, Quantoom acquires a non-exclusive license to any project-related IP the partner in question generates.(JC) With agreements in place with many of the programme’s participants, Quantoom stands to add substantially to its IP assets, rendering it an attractive target for acquisition by a larger entity. Castillo’s previous company, Artelis, was ultimately acquired by Danaher in 2015 [ 67 ].

The programme’s architects are thus walking a fine line between trying to seed collaboration within and on the margins of the programme and trusting all involved to thread the commitments to IP access throughout that evolving web of relationships. Terblanche and Castillo appear steadfast in their commitment to the programme’s stated objectives, yet cognizant of their respective organizations’ vulnerability to market forces. Terblanche shares her thinking:

I have a very strong, purpose driven, public health orientation. But I’m not stupid, I know my company needs to be financially viable to deliver on that promise. But greed is not my sin. Okay? I think that’s the difference. But I can’t tell you […] what will be the next CEO’s orientation? If Avacare [Afrigen’s primary shareholder] dilute or sell[s] us […] I have no control. So the only control I now have is agreements of care, which is public access. And these agreements will survive shareholders’ ownership. That’s the only thing I can do.(PT)

The decision to rely, to a significant extent, on private actors, banded together through CRADAs and other contracts, to build and share mRNA manufacturing capacities in LMIC settings is a signature feature of the programme. It is also reflective of the demonstrated preferences of its main architects, especially MPP, which has ascended in prominence in the sphere of global health as a result of the programme’s development.

Financialization’s intermediaries: MPP as a rising ‘power broker’ in global health

A third defining feature of the biopharmaceutical sector today meriting comparison with the mRNA programme stems from the industry’s highly financialized character. While the financialization of an industrial sector can manifest in several ways, the concept has generally been used to refer to the “increasing role of financial motives, financial markets, financial actors and financial institutions in the operation” of both domestic and international economies [ 68 ]. In the biopharmaceutical sector, the shift toward financialization is evident in the move by most major firms to become publicly traded on one or more stock exchanges (as opposed to family-owned businesses reliant solely on product sales for revenues) since the mid-twentieth century, the increasing importance assigned to maximizing shareholder value by financial actors with a controlling interest in many biopharmaceutical firms, and the growing reliance upon the tools of the financial sector, including mergers and acquisitions, and share buybacks and dividends, as the primary means to generate revenues [ 57 , 69 , 70 ].

The consequences of biopharmaceutical financialization are also several-fold. With financial companies, such as banks, venture capital firms, and asset management groups today often owning a controlling interest in any given biopharmaceutical firm, the strategic direction of those firms tends to become “more short-term oriented seeking to maximise immediate shareholder returns instead of making investments that look to the long-term health of the company [ 69 ].” Financialized biopharmaceutical companies may also increase prices for products already on the market to offset the cost of share buybacks and dividends, allocate greater resources towards marketing and advertising instead of R&D, and outsource R&D and manufacturing activities to countries, including LMICs, where labor costs are lower to the detriment of companies’ in-house capabilities [ 69 , 70 ]. In fact, many biopharmaceutical firms actually outsource R&D and manufacturing activities to third-party CROs rather than perform the work in-house [ 71 ]. Outsourcing R&D has, in turn, created a space for a variety of intermediaries and consultants to develop business models of their own, connecting large firms with CROs and other service suppliers in exchange for a fee, claims to IP, and reputational capital that flows from bridging various steps in the R&D process.

There is no indication that any of the mRNA programme’s direct participants mirror the financialization that is evident among more established biopharmaceutical companies. Neither Afrigen, nor its primary shareholder Avacare, are publicly traded companies. The same is true of the other private companies partnering with the programme. None of the companies involved appear to be using the tools of finance such as share buybacks as a means to generate returns. While some inputs into the manufacturing process have been secured from outside entities, Afrigen, Biovac, and programme partners in other LMICs are invested in developing their R&D and manufacturing capacities in-house in an effort to increase local production in LMICs. The Belgium company Quantoom, which has locked in partnerships with most LMIC manufacturers in the programme, may be amassing an interest in each partner’s IP. But Quantoom’s machines, which automate the in vitro transcription step of mRNA production, seem to contribute meaningfully to the manufacturing process.

While MPP’s position within the programme is not a symptom of financialization, the role that the foundation plays is analogous to the intermediaries that link together biopharmaceutical R&D and production supply chains. Like the industry’s many intermediaries, MPP’s presence simultaneously adds value to, and imposes a drain upon, the mRNA programme.

Through the programme’s legal architecture, MPP has positioned itself as the central intermediary for technology transfer. Afrigen is the nominal hub for partners to receive training and it has provided a 3-day course about mRNA manufacturing to most participating manufacturers. However, it is MPP—at times, with the assistance of outside consultants (MMA, CN)—that has assumed the role of conducting site visits, assessing the needs and capabilities of each partner, and conveying the knowledge, data, and IP generated by the consortium. Awaiting for MPP to visit its facilities, representatives from one partner noted that receiving the transfer directly from Afrigen, as the producer of the drug substance, might be more efficient. But the partner cautions that its technology transfer agreement is with MPP, not Afrigen. As a result, “all the information comes from MPP.” That is, “Afrigen to MPP and MPP to the spoke, [i.e.] to the technology transfer recipient.”(XZ,XA)

Having MPP as a ‘middleperson’ is not the optimal way to provide technology transfer.(AK,EW,PN,PT) Typically, technology is transferred from one party, which has direct experience utilizing it, to another, through both sharing of hands-on know-how and detailed documentation such as ‘Standard Operating Procedures.’ Even in that two-party scenario mistakes occur, for example, when experimental protocols are not sufficiently delineated. Introducing an intermediary into the process, which lacks hands-on experience practicing the technology in question, increases the chances that the transfer will be unsuccessful. Nevertheless, over the course of 2022–2023, MPP created its own technology transfer unit, comprised of five individuals with doctoral and master degrees in chemical engineering and other fields as well as varying levels of experience in the pharmaceutical industry [ 72 ], to manage technology transfer within the mRNA programme. According to some interview participants, this has precipitated frustration with MPP’s approach to technology transfer:

The MPP is spending gobs of money on creating a group that is supposed to be doing tech transfer. I’ve worked for more than 30 years in the industry. You do not have a remote group that does tech transfer. If a group is going to do tech transfer, it needs to be in the facility that’s sending the technology out. They need to be the detailed subject matter experts. So they seem to be building this empire that’s going to do what, I don’t know. And they seem to be micromanaging and want to be in charge of everything.(AK)

In that participant’s view, “if [the programme] doesn’t succeed, it’s going to be because of that kind of dynamic, not because the science doesn’t work.”(AK) Altering that dynamic, moreover, requires tact:

MPP now takes the funding for that [technology transfer] part and it goes to MPP because they have the team. So I don’t want to be seen, now I want all the money for Afrigen. It’s a […] sensitive thing because people I think, they go sometimes, “because oh, you’re Afrigen, you just want to dominate and control.”(PT)

Afrigen will, according to Terblanche, assume responsibilities for the technology transfer in 2024. But whether the Cape Town company’s people will be resourced to travel, train, and transfer technology to partners remains “under negotiations.”(PT)

MPP clearly has the potential to add value to the programme in the IP domain. Its core expertise lies in evaluating patent landscapes for legal risk and negotiating licensing agreements with IP holders. MPP has compiled the patent landscape associated with mRNA technologies; the findings to date are worrisome. Of the nine LMICs linked to the programme through a partner for which patent data is available, patent applications have, according to MPP’s dataset, increased markedly since a PHEIC was declared in January 2020 [ 23 ]. (see S2 Table ) More than a third (56 of 159) of all patenting activity related to mRNA since 2006 in the 15 countries connected to the programme (concentrated mainly in South Africa, Brazil, India and Serbia) occurred between 2020 to 2022. Further, there are reportedly an increasing number of “use patents” (purporting to claim IP on the use of mRNA technology against a given disease, e.g., malaria) being filed in South Africa and other LMICs. WHO’s Friede says such patents could block Afrigen and partners’ R&D plans, “especially […] in countries like South Africa where there’s no substantive examination [of patent applications to ensure they meet standards of novelty, non-obviousness, and utility].”(MF)

Notably, MPP’s work on the IP dimension of the programme does not extend to providing the South African consortium or other LMIC-based manufacturing partners with legal opinions about their respective “freedom to operate,” (FTO) i . e ., to conduct research and product development without undue risk of patent infringement litigation. The memorandum of understanding between WHO and MPP states that MPP will “provide IP analysis and commission [FTO] assessments for the Partners, as necessary [ 22 ].” However, the technology transfer agreements entered into with each partner refer only to providing “IP analysis…as practicable and appropriate” rather than supporting FTO assessments. MPP has reportedly provided funding for some partners to pay for FTO analyses by local law firms.(FL) Afrigen, however, has had to seek out independent legal advice using its own funding.(AK,PT) At least one partner is under the impression that the patent data that MPP has prepared and presented at programme meetings amounts to FTO guidance.(XZ,XA) But presenting a high-level summary of all the patent documents that exist is not the same as an in-depth interpretation of the scope of each patent granted in a jurisdiction—the core inquiry involved in crafting an FTO opinion.

The IP strategy behind the programme appears instead to be that the programme will meet incumbents’ IP positions with IP of its own. Glaudina Loots of South Africa’s department of science and innovation emphasises that the university scientists funded by the programme are keeping “the patent lawyers quite happy.”(GL) At least two patent applications have been filed to date, one pertaining to antigen design and another on a novel LNP technology, with each listing inventors from the University of Witwatersrand, including Arbuthnot and chemist Charles de Koning. Arbuthnot contextualizes the importance of these new patent applications in light of the programme’s goals of not just manufacturing a COVID-19 vaccine but also producing second generation mRNA technologies:

The lipid nanoparticle part of an mRNA vaccination technology is very, very important, so we’ve been doing a lot of work on that, and it’s a particularly interesting project, actually, with some synthetic organic chemists here in Johannesburg at Wits as well, who are using a bio-renewable source for the manufacturer of the important ionizable lipids, they’re called. […] We’re very excited about this because the lipids that are made to put into the vaccines that are used by, say, Moderna and Pfizer, are based on petroleum chemistry, so they’re not bio-renewable products at all. If we are able to get products that can work as lipid nanoparticles, this is potentially something that could be quite big, and we’re very excited and enthusiastic and working quite hard at trying to do that. That’s an example of something that would enable us to have freedom to operate where we wouldn’t have, wouldn’t be dependent on the [IP] of anybody else.(PA)

While the experimental work to determine whether the bio-renewable lipid works is ongoing, “the medicines patent pool guys in Geneva,” de Koning emphasises, “are telling us, ‘You need to patent the stuff’” to ensure the hub has FTO.(CdK) Underscoring the potential strategic value of these patents in the event that the consortium or programme partners are confronted by a competitor down the road, WHO’s Friede offers that “if that IP stands up to be really powerful, and we run into problems with certain companies, that IP might be a bargaining chip.”(MF) In other words, a strategy of “defensive patenting” could help shield the programme from threats of patent infringement from outsiders while also sharing knowledge among participating manufacturers [ 73 , 74 ]. The success of that strategy will depend on whether the patents are ultimately granted.

In short, MPP’s philosophy around IP, FTO, and contractual, negotiation-based solutions is imprinted on the programme; and, through its control over the programme, MPP has grown significantly in size and stature in the world of access to medicines. In the five years leading up to the pandemic, MPP’s annual budget was in the range of CHF 5–6 million [ 75 ]. Since the pandemic began and the mRNA programme was launched, MPP’s annual income has increased roughly fourfold (to CHF 23 and CHF 19 million in 2021 and 2022, respectively), the number of staff has jumped from 25 to 44, and their budget for external consultants has doubled [ 75 ]. Yet, it is not clear that MPP’s presence and philosophy will work to the advantage of the programme’s different participants. For instance, other go-to sources of funding in the field of infectious diseases, including the US NIH, the Gates Foundation and CEPI, have steered away from funding the programme as a whole. Gates recently provided USD 40 million spread between Cape Town-based Biovac, L’Institut Dakar in Senegal, and Quantoom, which has agreements with several programme partners [ 76 ]. CEPI has likewise supplied funding to four manufacturers taking part in the mRNA programme,(CN) including Indonesia’s BioFarma [ 77 ]. None of these awards will flow through MPP, however. “I don’t understand” why MPP and Gates are not working together, Quantoom’s chief executive Castillo explains, and I have “that conversation with MPP and the same conversation with Gates, and not only with Gates, but with Mr. Gates.”(JC)

Institutions engaged in the field of global health have long competed for resources, goodwill, and influence [ 78 – 81 ]. To the extent that there is fallout between actors vying for influence in Geneva, its impact upon the mRNA programme will not be uniform. Having expanded its portfolio of work to the realm of technology transfer, developed funding relationships with several HIC governments, opened a local chapter in South Africa, and launched a new strategic plan [ 82 ], MPP’s place as a new “power broker” [ 81 ] within the sphere of global health appears assured. In contrast, the business at the heart of the programme, Afrigen, has thus far been unable to secure funding from Gates and other sources, and is, according to its head executive, increasingly “vulnerable” to financial strain.(PT)

The sustainability question: Market-based governance

The fourth and final feature of the status quo is that control over the direction of biopharmaceutical production is concentrated in the hands of powerful, private actors that are, at bottom, governed by the market . Established firms calculate the ‘net present value’ (NPV) of one disease target versus another, which systematically devalues diseases that are endemic in LMICs and thus offer lesser financial returns [ 83 – 85 ]. The entrance of the Gates Foundation and other philanthropic organizations has supplied new research funding for TB, HIV, malaria, and many other “neglected diseases.” However, it is far from clear that these dominant organizations are prepared to rethink IP-intensive R&D practices or enforce access commitments in the service of public health [ 32 , 81 , 86 , 87 ]. They, too, are private actors, wielding significant influence over governments and entire scientific fields outside—and unaccountable to—the broader public.

Afrigen has targeted eleven potential diseases for mRNA product development. Unlike the standard approach to R&D, Terblanche suggests that the prospect of financial gains has not shaped the hub’s priorities to date:

Somebody asked me, […] ‘Your pipeline of 11. How did you get to it?’ I said, ‘I look at the unmet need, I look at the region. I look at whether there are vaccines or not, and I look whether the mRNA is suitable for it. And I look at whether we have access to antigens.’ And they said, ‘And what about the market?’ I said, ‘I’ve not included the market in my decision-making. I’m driving a need. And I’m not driving a profit, I’m driving a need, I’m driving sustainability.’ (PT)

Multiple proposals focusing on Lassa fever, RSV, and other disease targets, have since been turned down by a variety of funders, leaving Terblanche to concede that her “hand will now be forced to prioritize” in light of market rewards.(PT)

The architects of the programme appear to have accepted Afrigen’s precarity from the start, anticipating that the Cape Town firm might not survive in the hyper-competitive mRNA marketplace. The absence of pricing commitments parallel to those imposed upon programme partners or a commitment to allocate up to ten percent of “real-time production” capacity in the event of a PHEIC within the four corners of Afrigen’s Grant Agreement with MPP [ 22 ] ( see also S2 Table ) could be interpreted as an incentive for Afrigen to commercialize its technology. Read in conjunction with the views of the programme’s architects, the omission of these terms from the Grant Agreement likely suggests that the architects did not contemplate that Afrigen would ever generate mRNA products of its own. Recalling that some of the companies that took part in the influenza hub later shut down production, WHO’s Friede estimates that if a handful of LMIC manufacturers manage to make mRNA vaccines, the newer programme will be an overall success.(MF) Charles Gore of MPP notes, “we are funding [Afrigen] to develop and then shift [the technology] out,” but “they don’t [yet] have a business model.”(CG) Like any private enterprise engaged in biopharmaceutical innovation, MPP’s Marie-Paule Kieny speculates that Afrigen will, in the end, probably yield to market forces:

[W]ill the hub always be a necessity? I would argue no. […] The hub is really there to establish a first platform and improvement, and to help with an early pipeline. After that we are fully aware that Afrigen is a private company, at one point they will try to find somebody to buy them out and to get the benefit. I don’t know, what can we do? (MPK)

The near inevitability of Afrigen’s exit in the eyes of those who designed the programme speaks to an underlying failure of imagination concerning how the mRNA programme is governed. During the pandemic, calls for more “inclusive and decentralized” governance structures have grown [ 88 ] in order to shield initiatives such as the mRNA programme from the risks and constraints posed by dominant market actors. At a minimum, a more inclusive and decentralized structure would entail two key changes to the programme. First, representatives from participating LMICs capable of steering the programme’s R&D towards local population would need to be directly involved in the programme’s overall governance and day-to-day decision-making. Second, multiple actors would need to serve as regional mRNA hubs—as originally planned—in order to mitigate the risk that one organization’s failure (or acquisition by an outside actor) might compromise the programme as a whole.

Instead, WHO and MPP internalized programme decision-making within two hand-picked committees, leaned on private actors like Afrigen to play crucial roles, preserved their discretion about what projects and partnerships to pursue, and limited input from LMIC governments and civil society during the programme’s first two-plus years of operation. Members of the South African consortium, including scientists funded by the mRNA programme, also registered concerns about the lack of transparency surrounding the allocation of resources inside the programme. (ALW,ER)

The privatized approach to governance preserves the programme architects’ control over the programme. The function of the “Scientific and Technical Review Committee” (or “STeRCO”) is mainly to advise WHO and validate “high-level funding envelopes,” including “the funding for the transfer of technology, the hamster model from Marseille to South Africa” and the purchase of large GMP equipment for preparation of mRNA for Afrigen.(MPK) For its part, the mRNA Scientific Advisory Committee (mSAC), which includes several notable experts with ties to industry, HIC governments, and academia, plays a more technical role, for example, evaluating the funding proposals submitted by South African researchers connected to the consortium. Reflecting their close working relationship, MPP’s Kieny chairs the STeRCO while WHO’s Friede chairs mSAC; the WHO is the secretariat for STeRCO while MPP supports mSAC’s meetings and deliberations; and, the decisions by both serve to validate the use of funds from one source or the other ( Fig 2 ). Missing altogether from this governance structure is any direct representation from LMIC governments whose needs and interests the programme is meant to serve.

Notes : (1) This figure provides a schematic representation of the organizations and actors involved in the mRNA programme, and the inter-relationships between them. We contrast how the mRNA programme has been described in principle (Panel A) where Afrigen is described as the “hub” and manufacturers in LMICs are partners (or spokes), versus how the mRNA programme appears to work in practice based upon our findings (Panel B). (2) There are several important differences between Panel A and Panel B, including the fact that all of the technology transfer agreements are between partnering manufacturers and MPP (represented by double-arrowed lines). The only direct collaboration between Afrigen and a partner is with Bio-Manguinhos; the two organizations are in negotiations regarding a partnership focused on RSV (represented by the dashed line). Panel B also shows that all of the funding that has been secured for the programme flows through MPP (and WHO to a lesser extent). Members of the South African consortium as well as programme partners must negotiate access to funding from MPP, which, together with WHO, has delegated decision-making to the mSAC and STeRCo committees. Finally, Panel B also highlights other actors involved in the programme, including researchers at the University of Witwatersrand, the University of Cape Town, and North-West University (represented as Wits, UCT, and North-West, respectively), and the Belgium-based company, Quantoom, which has formed bilateral relationships with Afrigen and the majority of LMIC-based manufacturing partners. (3) While the figure’s details derive from our research findings, they are not intended to provide a comprehensive picture of the mRNA programme. For example, recently the programme’s architects have put into place a “Funders Forum” for countries and organizations that have provided financial support for the mRNA programme, and four new R&D consortia involving programme partners and outside actors were announced in March 2024 [ 89 ]. In order to limit the complexity of the figure, these new structures are not represented here.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0003173.g002

Collectively, these choices reflect the programme’s alignment with the dominant, market-drive approach to biopharmaceutical production. By design, the programme cannot stop Afrigen or other private companies embedded in the programme (e.g., Quantoom) from capitalizing upon the IP they amass through the programme or, if needed to satisfy their shareholders, sell their stake when the right offer materializes. Importantly, such a transaction would not mean that LMIC partners would be deprived of access to IP generated by Afrigen or other parts of the South African consortium. Similarly, a partner that patents an improvement of an mRNA technology that they receive from the programme cannot claim exclusive ownership over that new IP. Rather, the terms of the various agreements underpinning the programme pre-empt those possibilities. “[I]t’s a self-executing grant-back obligation,” MPP’s head lawyer Park stresses, so “if a spoke partner invents something, patents it, the license automatically comes back to us.”(CP) Notwithstanding this safeguard, however, the prospect of Afrigen exiting the space altogether or other parts of the consortium selling (on a non-exclusive basis) its IP assets to an entity based in an HIC, is in tension with the programme’s stated goals of building local mRNA manufacturing capacity in LMICs.

The foregoing findings raise questions about the design choices embedded into the mRNA programme, how best to empower LMIC-based manufacturers, and what additional steps need to be taken to ensure that this initiative enhances equitable access. We explore each in turn by way of conclusion.

A facsimile of the status quo in biopharmaceutical production?

Assessed against the dominant mode of biopharmaceutical production, we find that the mRNA programme nuances—but does not substantially depart from—at least three of the four key features of the status quo. Funding sources wield considerable influence over the mRNA programme, and university-based researchers and publicly funded institutions have made critical contributions to manufacturing processes and second-generation mRNA technologies. Yet, apart from requiring IP sharing inside the programme, the architects of the programme opted not to stipulate terms of affordability upon partners’ products (outside of the context of a PHEIC) on the strength of the assumption that market competition (either between the actors involved in the programme or with other mRNA manufacturers) will naturally yield that outcome. Further, the programme preserves every players’ freedom to contract with third parties. Thus, the programme’s commitment to IP sharing rests on each organization’s willingness to carry that condition through its various bilateral relationships, which have grown during the course of the programme. It is unclear if the programme provides oversight with respect to these bilateral transactions and, unlike the various legal agreements underpinning the programme, bilateral transactions between members of the South African consortium or manufacturing partners in other LMICs and third parties are also not publicly available. Finally, even though the entities involved are not embracing financialization in the manner of HIC-based biopharmaceutical companies, it appears that global market forces, rather than representatives of LMICs or local health needs, will ultimately decide what pathogens are prioritized for product development and whether Afrigen, the company at the heart of the programme, has a sustainable business model. To their credit, WHO and MPP are trying to seed collaboration within the programme, match-making participants around pathogens of shared interest and regional need [ 90 ]. But with trust among the diverse players still a work-in-progress, asymmetries in the programme’s legal architecture in terms of who stands to earn IP royalties and where products generated with the help of the programme can be sold, and funding shortfalls on the horizon for the hub in Cape Town,(PT) it is far from clear that these collaborations within the programme will materialize before difficult decisions about licensing IP to HIC contexts will need to be made in the name of sustainability.

Rather than forming a collective enterprise, the relationships among local producers engaged in the programme are fragile and participants appear just as vulnerable to market forces as they were before the programme was created in 2021. This outcome is a by-product of how the programme has been designed, in particular, a number of choices made by MPP while constructing the programme. MPP’s pursuit of a voluntary license from Moderna or another mRNA manufacturer arguably made sense initially given the state of the global health emergency when the programme began. However, MPP’s preference for a voluntary deal with an HIC-based manufacturer also appears to have undercut Bio-Manguinhos’ bid to become one of the mRNA hubs back in 2021. Bio-Manguinhos proposed building up end-to-end mRNA manufacturing capacity and ‘South-to-South’ technology transfer—a vision that the programme is now coming around to two-plus years later. The moment that a voluntary license from an established entity was not forthcoming, a deeper rethink of the programme’s architecture and norms was needed. Instead, most of the features of status quo biopharmaceutical production have been carried through the mRNA programme and MPP continues to court voluntary agreements from Moderna and other HIC-based biopharmaceutical manufacturers [ 91 ].

From remotely managed tech transfer to LMIC manufacturer empowerment

The mRNA programme’s design reflects both the resource constraints that (in the absence of more funding) the programme must operate under as well as MPP’s own institutional preferences around IP, competition, and solving access problems through voluntary (as opposed to mandatory) mechanisms. Without more funding from HIC governments, philanthropic organizations, or other sources, MPP was likely hard-pressed to demand that participating manufacturers agree to pricing constraints for mRNA products outside of a PHEIC. The money to make mRNA vaccines, in short, has to come from somewhere. Still, focusing exclusively on that economic reality obscures the high degree of control that the programme’s architects have maintained over all decision-making, resource allocation, and technology transfer activities.

Representatives from LMICs, including South Africa, are largely excluded from the programme’s governing structures. Likewise, civil society organizations from LMICs are not meaningfully represented on the programme’s STeRCo or mSAC committees. All of the funding for the programme sits in Geneva; only SteRCo and mSAC can decide if and when funding should be allocated. When Afrigen or another entity that is part of the programme is in need of additional funds, for instance, for the purposes of scaling up the next phase of technology transfer, or to pay for manufacturing equipment, it must engage in negotiations with MPP in order to access funding. Technology transfer, too, has to date been managed almost entirely by MPP’s new technology transfer unit notwithstanding the inefficiencies that this approach may carry.

It remains to be seen whether MPP, which has ascended in the sphere of global health during the pandemic as a result of its role as the central power broker for the entire mRNA programme, will over time cede some of its control and take the steps necessary to truly empower LMIC manufacturers. The move to create R&D consortia as part of the programme, constructed around pathogens of shared interest, holds promise. Providing FTO opinions to LMIC manufacturers when needed, advising LMIC governments about when and how to invoke compulsory licenses, stepping back from micromanaging technology transfer among programme participants—all of those actions stand to re-distribute control and decision-making authority to the researchers, organizations, and governments in LMICs. Yet, compulsory licensing runs counter to MPP’s way of doing business with established manufacturers and relinquishing control over the exchange of mRNA technology is in tension with the foundation’s newfound mantle as the go-to facilitator of technology transfer within the sphere global health.

Far from unique to the mRNA programme, conflicts around power and control are commonly in play within multilateral initiatives. In theory, “multistakeholder models of governance promise greater participation of different stakeholders;” yet, in practice, “these models can also undermine the authority of intergovernmental organizations, while expanding opportunities for powerful private actors to exert influence over governing structures, and concentrating power among parties with less democratic accountability to poorer countries and populations [ 12 ].” MPP’s rise has added to the “forum shifting”, turf wars, and competition that preoccupies a number of global health institutions claiming, or already commanding, political capital from Geneva [ 78 , 81 ]. Too often in the past initiatives with the stated intention of combatting neglected diseases in LMICs have remained under the control of organizations rooted in HICs [ 92 ]. Claiming ownership over the mRNA programme, its architects see themselves as “giving” mRNA technology to LMIC partners.(MF,CG,MPK) Many partners in turn express gratitude to be involved but, as often occurs when power imbalances exist, remain subjugated by the gift [ 81 ]. If the mRNA programme’s “decolonial aspirations” are to be realized [ 93 ], participating manufacturers in LMICs must be more empowered to collaborate South-to-South, build technological capacity, and generate mRNA interventions that are responsive to the health needs of, and affordable for, local populations.

Translating investments in the mRNA programme into LMIC-centered scientific infrastructure, participatory rights, and power

The mRNA programme has in one sense already succeeded. Producing an mRNA COVID-19 candidate with limited assistance from outside actors in a six-month timeframe demonstrates the South African hub’s technical capacity. From another perspective, the programme’s success should not be construed exclusively in terms of product development, but its potential as a lasting safeguard of local production capacity in LMICs. Afrigen and the programme’s partners are moving on to target other pathogens. Even if those efforts do not yield safe and effective mRNA vaccines against TB, RSV, malaria, and other priority diseases, the programme can still have a lasting impact by generating an accessible body of scientific knowledge, tools, and people with the know-how to apply them—provided that those outputs remain within the reach of, and are responsive to, LMIC health needs.

The idea of linking public funding for biopharmaceutical innovation to public scientific infrastructure, participatory rights, and power gained renewed attention during COVID-19 [ 47 , 88 , 94 – 96 ]. However, most governments demanded little to nothing in terms of IP sharing, equitable access, and reasonable pricing commitments from biopharmaceutical companies in exchange for the massive public investments that were made towards mRNA vaccines, among other interventions [ 45 , 49 , 96 ]. The mRNA programme improves on this state of affairs by requiring sharing of IP among the South African universities and LMIC partners who have signed onto the programme. Yet it does not stop SAMRC-funded university labs from also licensing their IP to actors in HICs or LMIC partners from entering into bilateral deals that capitalize upon the IP and know-how they have gained through the programme. Quantoom, the Belgium-based company that is formally outside the programme and thus not subject to its IP sharing commtiments, has struck partnerships with the majority of the programme’s manufacturers. Afrigen, for its part, can be sold to a third party if and when its primary shareholder decides that that course of action offers greater return than continued participation in the mRNA programme. All of these flexibilities that were built into the programme’s design introduce a risk that the knowledge, tools, and know-how generated by the mRNA programme may be exploited or extracted by outside corporations that do not share the goal of improving equitable access in LMICs.

To mitigate that risk and ensure that the programme’s outputs remain grounded in LMICs, a number of changes to the programme’s legal architecture and governance structures are worthy of consideration. First, the programme’s commitment to transparency should be extended throughout its operations. In particular, there must be greater transparency within the programme, such that Afrigen and other manufacturers can participate in, and have an understanding of, the decisions that are made by STeRCo and mSAC as well as the expectations of funders, including HIC governments. Similarly, the effort to make the programme’s legal architecture transparent should encompass any bilateral deals that members of the South African consortium or LMIC manufacturing partners secure. Making those transactions transparent will help guard against the risk that the programme’s collective IP and know-how will be captured by commercial outsiders. Second, representatives from LMICs taking part in the programme as well as civil society organizations from LMIC regions must have a stronger voice in the mRNA programme’s decision-making structures. Running forums with LMICs and civil society after decisions have already been made by STeRCo or mSAC is insufficient. It distances the work of the programme from the very people it is intended to serve. Third, the prospect of Afrigen—the hub at the centre of the programme—being acquired by an outside entity, or dissolved altogether due to financial challenges, must be more proactively addressed. The architects of the mRNA programme contend that outcome is essentially inevitable. However, steps can be taken to ensure that the publicly funded R&D infrastructure, product leads, and scientific know-how that Afrigen has amassed are not lost in the event of a private acquisition or insolvency. In return for additional funding, WHO and MPP should require Afrigen to make all of its IP and know-how available to the other members of the programme. Further, WHO and MPP should engage with the government of South Africa to see if corporate restructuring, acquisition by the state, or some other strategic investment offers a means to preserve public control over the knowledge and assets that Afrigen, in collaboration with others inside and outside the consortium, has developed during the course of the programme.

Public investment intended to improve equitable access to health interventions, such as mRNA vaccines, requires policy innovation in the form of participatory rights for LMIC communities and a protected stake in the scientific infrastructure and knowledge that that investment generates [ 96 , 97 ]. Revised with those fundamental goals in mind, the mRNA programme can position LMICs to lead where many HICs fell short in the context of COVID-19.

The provision of a technological solution, including vaccines, is no safeguard for equitable access. Attention to social context and structural challenges is needed to realize technology’s emancipatory potential. Our situational analysis of the WHO’s technology transfer mRNA programme, including semi-structured interviews with 35 individuals involved to varying degrees in the programme, suggests that the needs and perspectives of LMICs are not sufficiently centered in the programme. Further, the architects of the programme are working within the existing system of biopharmaceutical production and, at the same time, preserving their own control over the programme’s design and preferred measures meant to remedy shortfalls in equitable access to mRNA-based interventions. In particular, MPP continues to champion voluntary IP licensing as the optimal means to improve local production capacity in LMICs even though that mechanism did not attract collaboration from more established mRNA manufacturers in the context of COVID-19 and slowed adoption of a more transformative end-to-end approach to R&D and manufacturing. The technological outcomes of the mRNA programme remain uncertain. Absent significant reform and concerted effort to redistribute not just IP, but agency to LMIC actors, there is a significant risk that the programme, which is claimed by WHO and MPP as a collective effort to improve manufacturing capacity in LMICs for LMICs, will not solve the problem of equitable access to biopharmaceutical innovation.

Supporting information

S1 letter. response from global affairs canada to access to information request..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0003173.s001

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S1 Table. Comparison of Legal Agreements Underlying the mRNA Programme.

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S2 Table. mRNA Related Patent Filings in Countries with Participants in the mRNA Programme.

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Acknowledgments

The authors express our gratitude to Morris Odeh, PhD student at Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University, for research assistance on mRNA patent data in South Africa and LMICs; to the members of the IEAC (Fatima Hassan, Françoise Baylis, Jason Nickerson, Reshma Ramachandran, Srinivas Murthy, and Viviana Munoz) for their contributions and insightful feedback to this work and conversations that helped shape the form and substance of this manuscript and research project at large; to the Health Justice Initiative (HJI) for their support and engagement throughout this process; and to Els Torreele, Amy Maxmen, Melissa Barber, and Amy Kapczynski for their feedback, suggestions, and assistance during the research and writing process. Any errors or inconsistencies are solely the responsibility of the authors. Finally, we are especially grateful to the many individuals who took part in interviews in connection with this research project. We hope our findings will play a constructive role as the work of the mRNA programme continues. All views in this paper are the authors and do not represent the views of the institutions they are affiliated with.

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A methodological framework for new product development in fuzzy environments.

1. Introduction

2. materials and methods, 2.1. kano model.

• Must-be attributes ( M ): These are also called necessary attributes; these are the characteristics of a product/service which customers take for granted. When the attribute in product/service is present, the customer will likely feel neutral; however, if these attributes are missing, the customer will be very dissatisfied.
• One-dimensional attributes ( O ): These are also called linear attributes. When the attribute is absent from the product/service, customer satisfaction is low; when it is present, customer satisfaction is high.
• Attractive attributes ( A ): These attributes are not expected by the customer; however, their presence increases customer satisfaction substantially.
• Indifferent attributes ( I ): Whether these attributes are present or not, customer satisfaction remains unaffected.
• Reverse attributes ( R ): These are also called inverse attributes. When these attributes are present, customer satisfaction will decrease.
• Questionable ( Q ): These are also called invalid attributes, which means that the customer’s answer to the Kano questionnaire was nonsensical or the question was worded incorrectly. Note that this attribute may not only mean incorrect wording but may point to more meanings of the question, and therefore, it is necessary to discuss this question with the respondents to find the root cause of this answer.

2.2. Fuzzy Axiomatic Design

3. proposed methodological framework for new product development, 3.1. mixed-class classification method, 3.2. new importance ratio for attributes, 3.3. proposed procedure, 4.1. implementation and computation, 4.2. comparative analysis, 4.3. sensitivity analysis, 4.4. discussion, 5. conclusions, author contributions, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Yang, C.-M.; Li, S.; Chen, K.-S.; Li, M.; Lo, W. A Methodological Framework for New Product Development in Fuzzy Environments. Systems 2024 , 12 , 382. https://doi.org/10.3390/systems12090382

Yang C-M, Li S, Chen K-S, Li M, Lo W. A Methodological Framework for New Product Development in Fuzzy Environments. Systems . 2024; 12(9):382. https://doi.org/10.3390/systems12090382

Yang, Chun-Ming, Shiyao Li, Kuen-Suan Chen, Mingyuan Li, and Wei Lo. 2024. "A Methodological Framework for New Product Development in Fuzzy Environments" Systems 12, no. 9: 382. https://doi.org/10.3390/systems12090382

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