Ten years ago, the multinational pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca launched what was known inside the company as the Shark Fin Project. The team for the project was composed of lawyers, marketers, and scientists, and its focus was a prescription drug known as Prilosec, a heartburn medication that, in one five-year stretch of its extraordinary history, earned AstraZeneca 26 billion. The patent on the drug was due to expire in April 2001. The name Shark Fin was a reference to what Prilosec sales and AstraZeneca's profits would look like if nothing was done to fend off the ensuing low-priced generic competition.

The Shark Fin team drew up a list of 50 options. One idea was to devise a Prilosec version that worked faster or longer, or was more effective. Another idea was to combine it...