Patent Fight Bounces Bristol-Myers CEO
Peter Dolan's missteps in trying to secure an anticlotting drug's profitability led to his dismissal from the drugmaker's top post
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The test of a drug company isn't just how good it is at developing new medicines, it's also how well its executives fight the patent wars.
Patents ensure that successful drugs reap monopoly profits, but those monopolies are often fragile and open to challenge. That plunges pharmaceutical companies into an enormously high-stakes game of chicken. Right choices can bring extra billions in revenues. Wrong decisions can send stocks plunging—and cost CEOs their jobs. That's what just happened to Bristol-Myers Squibb's Peter Dolan, who was ousted from his post on Sept. 12.