Education

Venture capital has played a major role in shaping many of the innovations that form our modern society, ranging from the ideas that spawned the tech giants to life-saving medications. In recent years, there has also been an explosion of venture investment in new areas of healthcare – namely digital health and tech-enabled healthcare services.

This course aims to provide some insight into the world of venture capital through a healthcare lens. We will explore a range of topics, from fund formation, to identifying an investment target, to negotiating and closing an investment, to managing growth, to achieving an exit. One class will focus on what makes venture investment different in healthcare than in other industries. All along the way, we’ll look at some notable successes and failures to learn how venture capital can create enormous value, and where – and why – it has come up short.

The course will conclude with a VC pitch session to give students the experience of presenting their ideas to real venture investors. Students will work in groups to create and present their pitches and will learn what this experience is like for both entrepreneurs and investors. Afterwards, the investors will also discuss their experiences in the field and provide some insights to students from a career perspective.

Information technology and the management of this technology is increasingly critical in healthcare. Healthcare represents a new frontier for information management. This class explores the promises and challenges of health information technology in today's environment. Readings and lectures will focus on the nature and uses of health care information systems in a variety of health care settings. Students will learn fundamental IT terminology, understand how IT fits into the organizational structure in terms of quality of care, financing, and strategic organizational issues as well as project management. They will also learn about opportunities and challenges for IT in healthcare in the future.

This course will use practical resources, site visits, and in-depth healthcare policy analysis to provide students with an overview of the major public healthcare companies that influence and shape the U.S. healthcare system and the current policy challenges faced by these entities in light of healthcare reform. Content will focus on Fortune 500 companies covering areas including pharmaceutical, clinical care, medical device, managed care, technology, and emerging business models. Students will be able to debate pressing issues such as pay-for-performance, transparency, technology innovation, consumerism reimbursement pressures, and the new role of government that affect all players; assess the intersection of public players with the new era of healthcare reform that is forcing innovation and change in a volatile market place; and discuss the drivers of cost growth in relation to pricing innovation and the influx of new patients under the exchanges.

The type of capital investment used by a healthcare entity can have a profound impact on the financial viability of a healthcare organization. At one end of the spectrum, it can contribute to growth of the company and income generating potential. At the other end of the spectrum, it can create a crushing financial burden on the organization, as it tries to serve its debt obligations or repay its equity investors. It can also hamstring the management of the organization if investors sitting on the board have a different vision from the founders about the strategic direction of the company.

Capital finance therefore has short, medium and long-term consequences for the business opportunities and risks of healthcare organizations that go well beyond the capital investment itself.

Through a mixture of lectures, discussions, case studies and guest lecturers, students will be provided with the tools to understand the raising and allocation of investment capital for strategic and/or investment gain. The course will span the healthcare continuum from product makers (biotech, pharmaceuticals, medical devices,) supply (distributors, PBMs, pharmacies, CROs), payors (HMOs, government) and providers (hospitals, SNFs, Healthcare IT, diagnostics, practioners) and consumers. The course is for students who are interested in seeing how their healthcare management skills can be used in an applied setting

The course examines how new medical technologies (in particular, pharmaceuticals) affect the economics of the health care system, how economic incentives reciprocally affect the processes of medical technology development and diffusion, and the institutions and policies affecting the rate and direction of medical innovation. Through lectures, cases, and discussion, we will engage a range of contemporary debates in U.S. and global health policy, including those focused on innovation incentives, drug prices, intellectual property, and access to medicines. In addition to providing a basic overview of the pharmaceutical industry and the biomedical innovation system, the course will also introduce students to data sources related to medical innovation. A case study project, where each student becomes an expert about a specific medical technology, is a key component of the course.

In recent years, entrepreneurship has gained enormous popularity, even becoming accepted as a means to address pressing social and environmental issues. A significant percentage of our economy is now based on small businesses, and an entrepreneurial career is more likely and possible than ever before. Even in a more traditional corporate career, entrepreneurial skills can serve a manager well as companies that see out new opportunities. The benefits of entrepreneurship are abundant: the creativity to grow and manager your own business, the freedom of time, the potential to accumulate significant wealth and the possibility of making the world a better place. How does it happen? How can we take an idea and a blank piece of paper and transform them into an operating business with customers, cash flow and profits?

This course will break the process into discernible steps and skills. It will teach skills in opportunity identification and evaluation as well as an understanding of the steps and competencies required to launch a new business. The focus will be on scalable businesses that are large enough to attract professional investors.