By Vinam Puri
The following is a summarization of the lessons I’ve learned from the Mini MBA in BioPharma Innovation course offered by the Rutgers Business School Executive Education. If you have been in the Sciences throughout your entire career and are interested to learn and explore the Business side of the industry, like I was, then this program offered by the Rutgers Business School is for you, too. In a week of all-day sessions, you can learn as much as what a semester-long course teaches you in months! Within the 40 hours of this course, I made friends and learned a variety of topics from leaders both in industry and academia. To start off, all of the faculty in the program were chosen based on their varying experiences in the pharmaceutical industry (Pharma) and their passion for teaching what they had learned throughout life. All were immensely enthusiastic about their areas and were very willing to help all attendees in any way they could. I was also fortunate to have colleagues from different backgrounds in industry and diversity in experience levels. I was the only one who was still a full-time student which means I had sources to learn from in all directions possible. These courses are designed to have small classes, ensuring each student receives focused attention and provides an even better experience. The program starts with an overview of the US Healthcare system, which was an eye opener for me since I never understood how complicated this entire topic was. I learned about the importance of regulations in healthcare and how the government is involved, as healthcare has been of significant focus in recent years. and their very complicated interactions were introduced in this module; one key lesson I learned was that the common goal for all is to bring costs down but Pharma cannot do it alone. Surprisingly, Pharma is not solely responsible for drug prices as there so many variables that drive them. This module was taught by Gary Branning from MMR, LLC. Professor Branning is a national speaker and author, associate professor in pharmaceutical management, and has had several years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He discussed how disruptive healthcare is in the US and what strategies are needed to take it in the right direction. In another module, he spoke about the market access of pharmaceuticals and how health insurance coverage does not mean access. This module focused on demonstrating value for the access of the drugs. One key lesson for me is that cost, price, and value are mutually exclusive. I received an in-depth understanding of how the current system works in the US and where improvements are needed. The level of complexity of this system is so high that one can still dig much deeper to understand it and even then, complete understanding is very difficult. One of the topics which intrigued me the most was the degree of variation in different organizations and the importance of ensuring the success of an organization. Professor Jerry Kim talked about the ethical challenges in the life science industry due to the business model and the nature of the products. There are very valuable lessons to learn about the willingness to pay and the value of a product to the consumer. Strategy is an area that really fascinates me and this was a perfect lesson as it highlighted the need to learn from the successes of companies in other industries and how these tactics can be applied within Pharma. One of the key takeaways here was about the importance of corporate social responsibility and about doing the right thing. Supply chain management was a term I had heard plenty of times, but never really understood the ins and outs of it, especially within the biopharmaceutical field. Atul Tandon who taught this session was particularly suited for it as he has more than 30 years of global operations and management experience in several industries but especially in the medical devices, pharma and biotech industries. It started from the basics of supply chain management and ended with the inherent challenges of the field. Not only did Atul talk about the workings of supply chain, but also about the mindset one needs when managing it. Critical thinking is a very important asset to have in this very dynamic world since the smallest of products could have a very high impact due to price as well as effect value. I learned the skills that are critical to success in this fast-moving field that not only requires a special focus on product life cycles but is also continually challenged by the ongoing alliances, mergers and acquisitions. Another very valuable and enjoyable session was by Kevin McDermott from Insmed. Kevin has also had plenty of experience in the industry which includes leading the managed care marketing team during the launch of Lipitor. He taught us about commercialization in our industry, through topics such as pipeline management and strategies, partnerships, accessing opportunities and competing for assets as well as pricing and access. There was an overview of the life cycle of a new drug, device or therapy which is something everyone who wants to be in this industry must understand. I really value the lessons I learned about determination of value and how companies commercialize around that basic understanding. The crucial role of regulation was also covered in this module, resulting in a very beneficial session. If there was one session that convinced me that I wanted to be in this area of managing the business of Biopharma, it was the Strategic Alliances and Acquisitions Module by Dr. Gene Slowinski, who is a researcher, author, lecturer and believes in sharing all the knowledge he has gained over many years. This session explained to us how the business model of the pharmaceutical R&D has evolved over the years. There is now, more than ever, formation of alliances between industry and universities, between biotech and big pharma. With examples from his experiences and other real examples from the industry, this was a very helpful class for me to give me a direction to pursue as I try to identify and navigate my career path. The natural transition from strategic alliances and acquisitions was the topic of intellectual property which was beautifully explained by Patricia Werschulz, who is an intellectual property lawyer and a registered patent attorney. I was especially energized by Ms. Werschulz determination to learn more after years of experience in the product development and manufacturing which led her to make the decision to go to law school and pursue this new career. With an excellent academic background in everything she went to school for and a drive to help inventors and small businesses protect their IP, she was the best person who could have explained us about IP in the Biopharmaceutical Industry. This session was great for learning about copyright, trademarks, trade secrets, patens and finally about portfolio and life cycle management. This session became more relevant to me when the group exercise included an example product which was about the diseases I am working on for my Ph.D. project. One of the modules towards the end covered the information necessary to make any business decision with confidence – Modeling the Return on Investment in R&D. This section was taught by Dr. Steven Director, who recently retired from his role as the Associate Dean of the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations. With his extensive experience in teaching the graduate level course, Financial Analysis, as well as teaching executives from corporations across North America, Europe, and Asia, there could not have been a better teacher. His class included lessons about the of money, calculating return on investments using payback period, internal rate of return and net present value and how these can be applied in analyzing investment alternatives. This was a very hands-on class format which got into actual calculations using excel spreadsheets to perform discounted cash flow analyses and kept us occupied the whole time. This was the one module that I felt could be longer as there was so much to learn. Fortunately, I had already taken a course in the principles of Accounting and Finance offered by the Rutgers Professional Science Masters in Business and Science, so I had some background on the topics being covered. The final day of the program was conducted by Amy Porter and included modules on innovation in the pharmaceutical/biotechnology industry as well as business analysis of future business models. Amy is a biologist who has worked in the technology licensing offices of Stanford and MIT and has also had several years of experience in pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer, BASF, and ARIAD Pharmaceuticals. This was a very interesting module that covered different types of innovation and strategy models and provided examples within the industry. The presentation included the changes in pharmaceutical innovation over the years and the kinds of possibilities that exist in the future of the industry. The day and the program ended with my favorite part and something I was especially enthusiastic about – the Capstone module. This module tied together all topics covered in the course to create a comprehensive and insightful vision of the industry’s future role in the management of diseases. We worked in groups to create a product for the management of a disease which was enveloped with all the learning points from the entire course. We covered aspects of the healthcare industry, the role of insurance providers, value determination of the product, generating return on investment estimates for potential investors as well as aspects of acquisition working collectively with the other team. This was concluded by a presentation to investors, as well as an elevator pitch-style presentation. I am really glad that I decided to take this course which has made me much more versed in the commercial side of the pharmaceutical industry and helped me further my teamwork, communication, and presentation skills. Some noteworthy aspects of this Mini MBA program were group assignments in all modules that enabled learning and comprehension of the concepts with direct application, diversity in the attendees which provided an opportunity to learn from many different experiences, extremely experienced faculty genuinely willing to help and share their knowledge, and last but not least, amazing catering throughout the course which was a great facilitator for learning as well. Rutgers Business School Executive Education does a great job and they offer plenty of other courses that may be of interest to you. This post was edited by Huri Mucahita and Helena Mello.
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