bcg interactive case interview practice drug pricing

The Pulsifer Career Development Center's summer hours of operation are 8:00am - 5:30pm on Monday - Thursday.  The staff is remote on Mondays and in office on Tuesday - Thursday.  Bentley University strives to make web content accessible to all users. If you are having difficulty accessing information and need this content in an alternate format, please contact The Pulsifer Undergraduate Career Development Center  at  781-891-2165  or  [email protected] .

• What is a Career Community?
• Analytics/Actuarial
• Entrepreneurship
• Healthcare/Biotech/Pharma
• MarComm / Media
• Non-Profit/Public Policy
• Professional Sales
• Real Estate
• Sustainability
• African American/Black/Brown Students
• Asian Students
• First Generation Students
• First-Year & Sophomore Community
• Hispanic/Latinx Students
• International Students
• Students with Disabilities
• Alumni on Linkedin
• LinkedIn Online Course
• LinkedIn Learning
• Credit Internship Information
• Featured Jobs
• Micro-Internships (Pangea)
• Micro-Internships (Parker Dewey)
• Hire Our Students
• Career Closet
• Academic Resources
• Big Interview Mock Interview System
• Booking an Interview Room
• Career Planning
• Dress for Success Guide
• General Resources
• Graduate and Law School Information
• Interstride
• Job Postings & Career Planning
• Professional Associations and Organizations
• Retrieve Your Unofficial Transcript/Academic Record
• Student Organizations
• Using AI in Career Development
• Vault Guides
• Vmock Smart Editor Guide
• Your Major by the Numbers – 2023 Placement Data
• How HIRE Education Works
• Career Design Seminars (CDI 101, 201, 301)
• The Board of HIRE Education
• 2023 Student Outcomes
• Accountancy Majors
• Actuarial Science Majors
• Business Economics Majors
• Computer Information Systems Majors
• Corporate Finance & Accounting Majors
• Data Analytics Majors
• Economics-Finance Majors
• Finance Majors
• Management Majors
• Marketing, Communications, & Media Majors
• Our Services
• Employment Statistics
• Student Colleagues
• Contact Us!

Students Should Utilize BCG’s Interactive Case Library to Practice Case Interviews!

• Share This: Share Students Should Utilize BCG’s Interactive Case Library to Practice Case Interviews! on Facebook Share Students Should Utilize BCG’s Interactive Case Library to Practice Case Interviews! on LinkedIn Share Students Should Utilize BCG’s Interactive Case Library to Practice Case Interviews! on X

The Boston Consulting Group website has an amazing Interactive Case Library that students can use to practice case interviews.  This tool allows you to select a sample case (I tested an Airline Case) and then a fictional interviewer starts the mock interview with you.  You first receive background information about the client and then will work through multiple screens where you are asked a question (Ex. What factors should we explore for their impact on our client’s profitability?) and are provided with anywhere from two to five options to select as your response.  At some points, you are asked to complete calculations or analyze graphs and it does a really nice job of mimicking a real case interview.

When you finish the case, you will see a short recap and a summary of your results across 4 areas (Rigor, Structuring, Business Judgment and Synthesis).  In addition, you will see how  you compare to the Average and the 90th Percentile.  Enjoy!

• Meet Your Career Coach
• Book an Appointment
• Find Career Resources
• SPS Internship for Credit
• Browse Internships & Jobs
• Hire Our Talent!
• Host/Attend an Event
• Employer & Job Posting Policy
• Career & Networking Expo
• Post an Employment Opportunity
• Engage with Our Office
• Refer Our Services
• Partner with Us
• Career Coaching for Alumni
• Exclusive Career Resources
• Start Using SPS Talent
• Connect with Columbia Alumni
• Standards of Professionalism 
• Rising to the Top Podcast
• Apparel / Fashion / Retail
• Arts, Entertainment & Recreation
• Construction/ Engineering / Real Estate
• Environmental Services
• Finance / Insurance
• Government / Public Administration / Public Policy
• Pre-Medical
• Human Resources
• Marketing & Communications
• Nonprofit / Community / Social Services
• Black, Indigenous, and People of Color
• Disability Resources
• First Generation / Low Income
• International
• Jobs + Internships
• On-Campus Employment
• Think-a-Thon Challenge & Other Experiences
• HBCU Fellowship Mentorship Program
• Careers in China
• Professional Association Resources
• Meet the Team
• Meet the CDL Interns

Mastering the Case Interview: Tips from an Ex-BCG Consultant

• Share This: Share Mastering the Case Interview: Tips from an Ex-BCG Consultant on Facebook Share Mastering the Case Interview: Tips from an Ex-BCG Consultant on LinkedIn Share Mastering the Case Interview: Tips from an Ex-BCG Consultant on X

Mastering the Case Interview: Tips from an Ex-BCG Consultant was originally published on Vault .

What does Serena Williams’ serve have to do with the toughest job interview style out there? A lot. In today’s post on mastering the case interview, we’re going to unpack what the case interview really is, the core skills it tests and why the best way to prepare is shockingly similar to how Serena practices every day.

The case interview success story

If you rewind fifty years from today, the case interview would barely register on the radar of job interviews. But a lot has changed. Fifty years ago, The Boston Consulting Group was four years old, Bain & Company didn’t even exist and McKinsey & Co. was a barely recognizable fragment of the global behemoth it is today. Combined, those three firms rake in around $17 billion in annual revenue and they owe much of their continued success to world class talent. After all, these firms don’t own any tangible assets or products. 

So how have these firms secured world class talent decade after decade? The case interview. In fact, the format has been so successful for these dominant consulting firms that the giants of other industries have taken note. Both Amazon and Google have adopted the case interview format in various incarnations for many of their business roles and other tech firms, like Facebook, aren’t far behind either.

The preparation game has changed

As case interviews have grown in popularity, the stakes on the preparation side have been upped as well. It used to be that candidates could simply read a few basic case interview books, memorize some popular business frameworks like Porter’s 5 forces and combine that with some natural talent and have a decent chance in the case interview. 

Today, that passive preparation won’t fly. What’s passive preparation? It’s a process characterized by a “lean back” experience like reading a book or watching a video tutorial—it can help set context but it isn’t a standalone strategy. Serena Williams didn’t learn her Wimbledon dominating serve by reading a book and, likewise, the best case interview candidates aren’t honing their skills by simply reading either. In fact, the best candidates are actively preparing by devoting significant time to building the skills which will be tested directly in the interviews.

Which skills? Glad you asked—let’s jump into those next.

The core case interview skills

You could get a case about a medical device firm looking to enter the Chinese market for the first time or a children’s entertainment company that needs a new pricing strategy for digital content. The subject of case interviews will vary widely. However, the skills tested are consistent across cases. Here are the four foundational case skills and why they matter.

Problem structuring: It’s tough to overstate how critical this skill is. Consultants have turned problem structuring into an art (see the MECE principle ) and they’ll expect candidates to demonstrate strong skills here. Why? Well, it matters at every single level of the job, from a Partner breaking up an entire case into large work streams to junior Associates structuring their approach to sizing markets, etc.

Mental math: People always want to ask, why does mental math matter in the world of Excel and iPhone calculators. Quite simply, strong mental math abilities are sought after because it lets consultants quickly prove or disprove hypotheses with quick “back of the envelope” calculations. When you’re evaluating thousands of different potential strategies, quickly ruling out ones via simple mental math enables consultants to work effectively.

Charts and data analysis: If there is a “lingua franca” of consulting, this is it. Consultants cull through reams of data in their jobs and when they’ve got the answer, charts are the vehicle to nicely sum up their findings and highlight the key trends. Aspiring consultants will quickly find that the art of representing an insight via the right chart is a subject approaching near religious debate at any firm.

Communication: Consultants don’t just need the analytical chops to get the right answer, they also need the ability to communicate it clearly and create alignment with clients. If you consider consulting from the highest level, the job essentially has two parts: 1) Finding the right answer and 2) Selling the right answer to the client. It is the second part where effective communication becomes a “deal breaker” skill.

Building skills like a boss

The list of skills above might be daunting, but if you take a page out of Serena’s book and practice the core skills daily, you’ll see a marked improvement. Williams’ dedicated practice regimen has gained fame in tennis circles. Despite being the dominant female player in the league today, she’s on the court four hours a day practicing serves, backhands, volleys, et al.

The best candidates take the same approach for case interviews. While figuring out what skills to practice isn’t tough (just see the list above), but putting in the work is. For a deep dive on preparing for case interviews, check out the Mastering the Case Interview webinar . In it, we cover the anatomy of a case in detail, walk through the examples of how each core skill in tested in a sample case interview environment and recommend a skill building loop that will have you prepping for case interviews with the best of them.

Kenton Kivestu is the Founder and CEO of  RocketBlocks , an online platform that helps students prepare for case interviews. Prior to RocketBlocks, he worked as a strategy consultant in BCG’s San Francisco Office, launched online ad platforms at Google and led the Zynga mobile poker franchise. He has successfully navigated hundreds of case interviews himself and believes that the case interview is an important recruiting tool that helps simulate the on the job experience. He started RocketBlocks to help candidates hone their analytical skills so they can put their best foot forward on interview day. Kenton graduated as an Echols Scholar with distinction from the University of Virginia and holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. 

• The ClearView Way
• News and Events
• Pharma & Biotech
• Medtech & Diagnostics
• Pricing & Market Access
• Advanced Analytics
• Launch & Commercialization
• Expert Research Solutions
• White Papers
• Quick Takes
• Conferences
• Why ClearView
• Explore Opportunities

ClearView Careers

Practice case #1.

Your client is a mid-sized pharmaceutical company with an inhaled insulin product for the diabetes market. The client’s goal is to earn peak revenues of $300M/year in the U.S. and they have asked you to determine whether this sales goal is realistic by calculating the dollar value of the current insulin market and determining which factors will influence the success of the product.

What components do you need to know to determine the market size of this product?

In order to determine the market size for your client, you must know the following pieces of information:

• Prevalence of the Disease in the U.S.
• Disease Segmentation
• Diagnosis Rate
• Treatment Rate

After researching the insulin market, the following information was found. The prevalence of diabetes in the U.S. is approximately 20 M patients. Type I diabetes comprises 10% of the prevalent patient population, while the other 90% is comprised of patients with Type II diabetes. Of this affected population, nearly 100% of Type I patients are diagnosed, while only 65% of Type II patients are diagnosed. Furthermore, while 100% of Type I patients are treated with insulin, only approximately one-third of Type II patients are treated due to a variety of factors. Lastly, while the price and dose of insulin varies, your research has indicated that, on average, insulin therapy costs $80/month per patient. Your client has also indicated that pricing for the product they are developing would be in line with this.

Using this information, determine the current insulin market size and the percentage capture the client must achieve in order to reach their peak sales goal of $300 M/year.

• Prevalence of the Disease in the U.S.: 20 M patients
• Type I: (20 M patients)*(.10) = 2 M patients
• Type II: (20 M patients)*(.90) = 18 M patients
• Type I: (2 M patients)*(1) = 2 M diagnosed patients
• Type II: (18 M patients)*(0.65) = 12 M diagnosed patients
• Total: 14 M diagnosed patients
• Type I: (2 M patients)*(1) = 2 M treated patients
• Type II: (12 M patients)*(1/3) = 4 M treated patients
• Total: 6 M treated patients
• ($80 month/patient)*(12 months) = ~$1,000 year/patient
• ($1,000 year/patient)*(6 M treated patients) = $6 B/year
• ($300 M/year peak revenue goal)/($6 B/year total market size) = 5% capture

In order to evaluate how realistic a 5% market penetration is for your client, what factors regarding the inhaled insulin product do you need to consider and how can each of them affect the success of the product?

There are many factors that can affect the success of your client’s product, however some of the key considerations are:

• Convenience
• Onset of Action
• Biologic Variability

Research into the first four areas revealed that the drug is indeed as efficacious as predicted in both short and long-term scenarios. Furthermore, the drug demonstrated strong tolerability and safety on a short-term scale, but long-term data was found to be lacking, particularly relative to injectable insulin which has had a long track record in the clinic. Lastly, while the price is comparable to current therapies on the market, the convenience of the product was limited due to the inhaler not being considered travel size by patients.

Considering all of the above information, do you feel that the client will be able to capture the 5% of the market they need to reach their current peak revenue sales goal? Why or why not?

Ultimately, the research indicated that 5% market share was unlikely. Given the fact that the product did not improve upon efficacy or safety, the lack of convenience and lack of long-term safety data (relative to injectable insulin) was expected to severely limit use of the product.

Ready to Apply?

Learn more about current opportunities at ClearView and apply for an open position

CLEARVIEW HEALTHCARE PARTNERS® is a registered trademark of ClearView Healthcare Partners, LLC in the United States, the UK, Switzerland, the European Union, and various other countries. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2024 Clearview Healthcare Partners. All Rights Reserved. | Privacy Policy | Yelling Mule - Boston Web Design

404 - NotFound

The resource you have requested cannot be found.

We're sorry :-(

404 - NotFound

The resource you have requested cannot be found.

We're sorry :-(

404 - NotFound

The resource you have requested cannot be found.

We're sorry :-(

404 - NotFound

The resource you have requested cannot be found.

We're sorry :-(