Field Course: Lab to Market

Course Number 6107

Professor Karim Lakhani

Senior Fellow Peter Barrett

Fall; Q1Q2; 3.0 credits
Thursdays 2:30-4:30
Project
HBS Lab to Market is open to cross-registrants. Interested cross-registrants should submit a resume here

Qualifies for Management Science Track Credit

The greater Boston area is home to some of the world’s finest research laboratories and hospitals, and together secure billions of dollars in federal, state, non-profit, and private funding to advance the frontiers of knowledge. To bring these technologies to market, there is an ever-growing need for entrepreneurs who can work in technical multidisciplinary teams, secure funding, and pursue commercial opportunities.

The Lab to Market field course is designed to outline the path from the very early discoveries made in R&D labs to their development for commercial use. The course is designed for students who want to pursue entrepreneurship in science and technology, anticipate leading market launch teams in incumbent organizations, or are interested in becoming investors.

The course covers such issues as creating value from science and technology innovations, business model design, value creation and capture strategies, financing, intellectual property, and organizational models of science and technology-based ventures.

By design, approximately 50% of the students in the class will be cross-registrants from Harvard Medical School, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard Law School, and the MIT Sloan Fellows Program. This highly diverse student body provides a unique opportunity for cross-disciplinary learning.

Students will work in multidisciplinary teams to develop business plans around real intellectual property emerging from world-class laboratories at Harvard, MIT, various teaching hospitals, and other local scientific research institutions. Course faculty will provide mentoring and advice for project teams, and students will work directly with principal investigators from these research labs. Many past projects have entered and performed well in business plan competitions, with several alumni entering the science-based startup sphere as co-founders or executives afterward.

HBS Lab to Market is open to cross-registrants. Interested cross-registrants should submit a resume here. The faculty will review all cross-registration candidates and select a subset that will reflect a balanced diversity of relevant fields of study to create interdisciplinary student teams.