6. What is Aerogen’s core competitive advantage on international markets? What type of strategic attributes enable the firm to attain its competitive advantage in foreign markets? Since its founder John Power first established a medical technology business in Galway in 1998 Aerogen

(www.aerogen.com) has had an interesting corporate history. In 2000, the company merged with a US Silicon Valley-based Speciality Pharmaceutics company and went public on NASDAQ that same year. The company was acquired in a hostile takeover in 2005, and following a Management-Buy-Out

(MBO) led by John Power in 2008, it again became an Irishowned entity. In 2020, the company successfully designs, manufactures, markets and sells a range of patented drug delivery systems aimed at the critical care respiratory market.

Its market leading electronic nebuliser products have been used to treat over 10 million patients and are used in acute care facilities in 75 countries throughout the world. It employs over 300 people, 220 in its Irish facilities (70+ R&D) and 80 internationally. It supplies an own-branded integrated product range to all of the major Acute Care Respiratory Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) as well as a stand-alone version of the nebulisers to Independent Distributors (IDs) in the larger international markets. The late business guru Peter Drucker stated: “Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two, and only two, basic functions: marketing and innovation” (Drucker, 1954, pp.

39–40).