The course is for students who plan to work with or in the Bio-Pharma industry - as a manager, entrepreneur, investor, or consultant. The course will focus on applying the concepts learned as part of Booth’s introductory marketing and strategy courses to the unique challenges faced by professionals and entrepreneurs in the life sciences industry in bringing products to market and in revenue expansion. The challenges arise due to the high costs and failure rates in developing new products as well as from the need to navigate a complex regulatory and market environment with multiple stakeholders and partners.
The course will be a combination of lectures, readings, cases and guest speakers covering the following areas:
- Understanding the extremely regulated environment the life sciences industry operates in.All dimensions of the business from product development (product concept, safety and efficacy, product development plan), marketing exclusivity, manufacturing, market access, pricing and promotion of products are regulated to varying degrees by the government.This combined with the nature of the end product - creates unique and complex challenges in product development and marketing.
- Understanding the Product development and lifecycle model in the Bio-pharma industry and the risks and timelines associated with this model.
- Stakeholders and system: Manufacturers in the Bio-pharma industry must not only work with multiple regulators such as the FDA, CMS, patent office, state regulators, but also need to understand how to identify key stakeholders and manage multi-stakeholder networks and partners as part of their product commercialization.These include payers like Center of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), health care insurers, and Pharmaceutical Benefit Managers (PBMs), supply chain partners like wholesalers, distributors, general and specialty pharmacies, and research and advocacy partners such as physicians and patient advocacy groups. Such a complex structure and environment creates challenges in product commercialization, but understanding that the structure, incentives and motivations of these players can also create opportunities to capture value in product development and market entry/expansion.
- How to apply the institutional understanding and marketing and strategy concepts to successfully commercialize products in the life-sciences industry: Bio-Pharma companies operate in a market place in which customers include individual consumers (patients), health care providers (both individual and institutional), governments, and third-party payers.We will understand how core marketing concepts like segmentation, targeting, positioning, pricing and new business strategy play out in this complex world.
By the end of the class, students can expect to have a contextual understanding of the broad frameworks of the life sciences industry. They should be able to apply the concepts learned in the introductory marketing and strategy classes to this industry and create value.
