Perspective by Mitchell McBrairty
MBA Candidate, Class of 2021
Course Project Judges: Professor George Telthorst, Kelley School of Business; Cy Megnin, Elevate Ventures; RJ Hall, Zimmer Biomet; Dan Peterson, Cook Incorporated and Elliot Androphy, Kovina Therapeutics
During the Fall 2020 semester, I had the wonderful opportunity to take the CBLS course, X519 – The life sciences industry from research to patient. This class took a deep dive into each step of the healthcare value chain, featuring speakers on a wide range of topics including technology transfer of basic research, manufacturing of biosimilars, medical communications, value-based healthcare delivery, and many more. With a class built from a variety of different backgrounds including scientists, MBAs, Masters in Healthcare Management students, and undergraduates, it was extremely valuable to see how each of our specific expertise fit within the broader context of the industry. As nearly all of us are students exploring new career opportunities, it also opened up our eyes to many new ways to contribute to the different pathways that have an impact on the final patient.
The course design carefully wove in our newly acquired knowledge of the healthcare value chain with a term-long team-based final project. The objective was to develop a commercialization strategy for Kovina Therapeutics, a newly created biotech startup co-founded by Elliot Androphy out of Indiana University. Kovina Therapeutics discovered a valuable new medicine to treat the root-causes of HPV-associated cancers and needed to identify the ideal value proposition for the new venture. This required us to think extensively about where this new technology could add value at each step of the value chain to develop a viable business model.
This quest for determining the right business model incorporated many peripheral topics that took the experiential component of the course to the next level. For example, our team had to contemplate what might be the best strategy for pricing when building out our financial model. We also scrutinized the potential strategies to build the extensive capabilities required to bring a potential new medicine to market. This included the possibility of partnerships with existing companies, co-development opportunities, and licensing agreements. In the end, we had the pleasure of presenting our findings to Kovina Therapeutics and provided the startup with a variety of interesting strategies to consider moving forward.
The healthcare industry, with all of its complexities, can be one of the most challenging to understand. However, whether you are working for a small startup or a large corporation, understanding how your current work fits into the broader value-chain is an important component of creating a successful career. This class definitely prepared us for an exciting future in healthcare!
A special thanks to Eli Lilly and Company and the IU Research and Technology Corporation for supporting the course along with all the corporate guest speakers each week.
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