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Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital in Healthcare

Course Number 1660

Professor of Mgt Practice Richard Hamermesh
Senior Lecturer Robert Higgins
Winter, 30 Sessions
Exam

CAREER FOCUS

The course is intended primarily for students who have a career interest in either leading or investing in healthcare ventures (biotechnology, medical devices, and healthcare services) . It will also be of interest to students who plan to work in Business Development functions either in or outside the health care sector.

EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES

Healthcare represents a staggering 16% of US GDP and is also one of the major areas of new venture investing. In recent years, biotechnology, medical device, and health care service investments have represented between 25 to 30 percent of all venture capital funding. Moreover, because of the role of universities and other research institutions in producing new intellectual property and because of the financial and distribution power of the major publicly traded healthcare companies, new ventures in healthcare often include licensing and joint venturing arrangements. The course thus has the following learning objectives:

  1. To be able to assess the viability of proposed new healthcare ventures.
  2. To learn what and where the major sources of intellectual property for healthcare ventures are.
  3. To learn the basic elements of licensing and joint venture agreements.
  4. To understand who the major institutional and strategic investors are in creating new healthcare ventures and what their goals and motivations are.
  5. To understand what the business development function is in both large and small healthcare companies.

COURSE CONTENT AND ORGANIZATION

The course is organized into seven modules, with the underlying notion that before a healthcare venture can be evaluated, students need to understand the requirements of both financial and strategic investors.

Module I: Introduction: Becoming a Player This module provides an overview of four very different healthcare ventures and four entrepreneurs with very different career and educational histories. The module gives a sense of the range of ventures in healthcare and asks whether there is a best background/career path for a healthcare entrepreneur.

Module II: Securing Intellectual Property Virtually all healthcare ventures are built around intellectual property (IP). In this module, we examine how IP is secured with particular emphasis on licensing IP from university labs.

Module III: Managing the Regulatory Environment Gaining regulatory, i.e. FDA, approval is a critical requirement for healthcare ventures. This modules looks closely at the clinical trials and regulatory process.

Module IV: Financing the Venture This module focuses on the recurring issues healthcare entrepreneurs face in financing their ventures. We will examine the full range of financing sources and their respective pros and cons.

Module V: Managing Business Development Business development is an essential function in virtually all healthcare organizations. We will study what business development is supposed to accomplish and how it differs depending on the company's objectives.

Module VI: Growing the Venture and Realizing Value This module examines how healthcare entrepreneurs and investors can best monetize the value of the ventures they have created.

Module VII: Conclusion The course ends with two summary cases and a panel of experienced healthcare entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.

The course will be case-based. Most case protagonists will be attending when their case is taught.