Vlerick Repository

• Comparative and combined effectiveness of innovative therapies in cancer: A literature review (Published Online)

  Geldof, Tine; Rawal, Smita; Van Dyck, Walter; Huys, Isabelle (Future Medicine Ltd, 2019)

  To achieve therapeutic innovation in oncology, already expensive novel medicines are often concomitantly combined to potentially enhance effectiveness. While this aggravates the pricing problem, comparing effectiveness of novel yet expensive (concomitant) treatments is much needed for healthcare decision-making to deliver effective but affordable treatments. This study reviewed published clinical trials and real-world studies of targeted and immune therapies. In total, 48 studies compared and/or combined multiple novel products on breast, colorectal, lung and melanoma cancers. To a great extent, products evaluated in each study were owned by one manufacturer. However, cross-manufacturer assessments are also needed. Next to costs and intensive market competition, the absence of a regulatory framework enforcing real-world multiproduct studies prevents these from being conducted. Trusted third parties could facilitate such real-world studies, for which appropriate and efficient data access is needed.
• Why some are more equal: Family firm heterogeneity and the effect on management’s attention to CSR (Published Online)

  Fehre, Kerstin; Weber, Florian (Wiley, 2019)

  Research at the family firm–Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) nexus lacks agreement about whether family firms are more or less socially responsible than their non‐family counterparts, which leads discussion relating to the bright and dark side of socioemotional wealth (SEW). We add to this ongoing debate in two different ways. First, we build on family firm heterogeneity and argue for a gray side to SEW, located between the bright and dark sides that is dependent upon the kind of family firm ownership. Second, we assume that prior research on a diverse set of CSR behaviors may, to some extent, explain the contradicting results; thus, we propose going back a step and focusing on management’s attention to CSR as an important antecedent of CSR behavior. By analyzing the letters to the shareholders of German HDAX firms from 2003 to 2012, this study finds that family ownership positively affects management’s attention to CSR, mainly driven by founders and family foundations. The research adds to our understanding of the family firm–CSR nexus by scrutinizing the role SEW plays in management’s attention to CSR when it comes to family firm heterogeneity.
• The performance of acquisitions by high default risk bidders (Accepted)

  Bruyland, Evy; Lasfer, Meziane; De Maeseneire, Wouter; Song, Wei (Elsevier, 2019)

  We investigate the takeover strategies of high default risk acquirers and their value impact. We find that these bidders select bigger, less profitable and unrelated targets, pursue transactions during recessions, and pay with shares by offering target shareholders high premiums. Their long-term buy-and-hold returns are extremely negative, and reflect fundamentally their substantial drop in profitability combined with high leverage. We show that the well-established long-run under performance of acquiring firms is largely driven by this sub-set of acquirers. The results are similar when we use alternative measures of default risk and performance, and a global sample of non-US bidders.
• To enter or not to enter? Euroclear bank and the corporate action agents market

  Peeters, Carine; Delbrouck, C. (2015)
• Alliander: Power to the people (C)

  Debruyne, Marion; Meeus, Leonardo; Hadush, Samson Yemane (2017)

  This is part of a case series. The aim of this three part teaching case is to stimulate discussion on how companies can adopt new business models to survive sector-wide transitions by taking the perspective of energy network companies which often operate under a highly regulated environment.

View more