Increase your company’s net worth by learning the business side of life sciences from an elite,top-ranked business school
Expand your career options and increase your growth potential within your company
Fit executive business education into your schedule conveniently and cost-effectively
Description of the video:
Watch the video to learn about how the ECBLS can give you an edge in your life sciences and healthcare career by improving your understanding of the industry and building your network.
Earn your ECBLS from the Kelley School of Business in less than a year
Five courses—core subjects in a typical MBA program that are modified to incorporate life sciences content, cases, and examples
Taught by internationally recognized Kelley faculty
The program begins with a six-day in-residence course and program orientation. Students form teams, meet the faculty, and receive a tutorial on the highly acclaimed Kelley Direct online system
Four online courses follow
The program concludes with a two-day Capstone Experience. Student teams demonstrate the skills learned in a case analysis to the ECBLS faculty
The Kelley Executive Certificate courses are delivered in a unique blended format which uses both in-residence and online learning modes. The program begins with a combined six-day in-residence course and program orientation. Students form teams, meet the faculty, and receive a tutorial on the Kelley Direct online system. Four online courses follow. The program concludes with a two-day capstone experience. Student teams demonstrate the skills learned in a case analysis to the ECBLS faculty.
The following five courses compose the Executive Certificate in the Business of Life Sciences. Students take these courses sequentially:
BA601 Leadership Perspectives (6 days in-residence)
MGT626 The Value Chain in Healthcare (10 weeks online)
ACCTG696 Accounting for Executives in Life Sciences (10 weeks online)
BA655 Marketing Management and Strategy in Life Sciences (10 weeks online)
The certificate program concludes with a capstone experience (two days in-residence) as student teams demonstrate the skills learned in a case analysis to the ECBLS faculty.
Course descriptions
Faculty:Dr. Katherine Ryan, Co-Director of Communication, Profesional, and Computer Skills, Senior Faculty Lecturer
This graduate course presents principles, challenges, and strategies associated with effective organizational leadership and the management of organizational change initiatives in dynamic work environments. You will explore issues such as strategic decision-making, collaboration, employee engagement, motivation, and change management, using both deductive and inductive learning.
At the conclusion of this course you will be able to:
Apply course content and relevant theories to accurately diagnose organizational leadership problems and identify solutions
Explain ideas and concepts related to organizational theory, design, and leadership
Assess theories and strategies as they relate to identifying and addressing organizational problems
Design specific improvement initiatives based on data analysis and strategic change frameworks
Analyze data relevant to an identified organizational problem
Apply model(s) to recommend a plan for strategic change
Create and deliver clear, concise, and compelling business presentations and documents
Convey ideas and facts with accuracy and self-confidence
Defend recommended course of action with high-quality evidence
Reflect on personal leadership philosophies and collaborative interactions
Offer and receive relevant behaviorally-based feedback to/from peers
Evaluate and regulate behavior in accordance with feedback and course insights
For a detailed syllabus, please contact Dr. Katherine Ryan with your request.
Faculty: George Telthorst, Senior Lecturer; Director, Center for the Business of Life Sciences; Director, Life Sciences Academy Plus
This course will present an overview of the economic foundations of the life sciences and healthcare value chain. In this course we will explain the idea of a business value chain with attention to underlying economic principles, and then apply those concepts to a specific segment of the life sciences or healthcare industries. It is designed to provide graduate students from a variety of business and non-business backgrounds with a solid introduction to the economic foundations of life sciences, with a special emphasis on healthcare. This course is intended to serve as a starting point for students to develop an inter-disciplinary discussion between business, life sciences and healthcare services industries.
After completing this course, students working as individuals and in teams will be able to:
Understand the core concept of value chain and be able to apply the concept and related tools to specific examples in the life sciences and/or healthcare industries
Examine a range of value chain issues in specific healthcare-related industries in order to broaden the understanding of each of these industries including the important issues/trends being faced there
Explore the role of “disruptive innovation” as a vehicle for improving the current configuration of the healthcare value chain
Apply available business research tools and value chain concepts to complete a detailed healthcare industry analysis with a specific focus on several companies within that industry, as well as the potential for disruptive innovation
Demonstrate mastery of value chain concepts and tools as they apply to health care related industries
For a detailed syllabus, please contact Professor George Telthorst with your request.
Faculty: Christopher Cook, CPA, CGMA, Senior Lecturer of Accounting
This is a graduate-level course in general accounting theory and practice, with an emphasis on accounting issues and practices pertinent to life sciences companies. As a vehicle for student learning, many problems and real-world scenarios are incorporated to replicate business decision-making situations commonly encountered in (and by) life sciences companies. A special life sciences focus includes accounting for research and development expenses, revenue recognition, leases, and product costing in complex manufacturing environments. The course will contain a mix of computational and conceptual problems. Students who have never had an accounting course are encouraged to take the accounting primer so they are familiar with the basic concepts and terminology used in accounting.
For a detailed syllabus, please contact Professor Christopher Cook with your request.
How do pharmaceutical firms like Merck decide which projects to fund? What sources of capital can a biotech firm tap? How do investors value such firms? How does Zimmer Biomet measure the financial viability of a new medical device?
Finance offers an analytical framework with which to analyze such issues, and this course is designed to help you learn and apply a set of key tools that fall out of that framework. The fundamental idea at work is one of value: valuing firm assets and activities, valuing alternative financial management decisions, and valuing the investments made by suppliers of firm capital—the shareholders.
Upon completing this course successfully, a student will be able to:
Correctly apply time value tools to a variety of business and personal finance situations
Evaluate capital investment projects by estimating cost of capital and risk-adjusted net cash flows using appropriate capital budgeting principles and tools.
Demonstrate proper use of real options and various capital structure and distribution opportunities in strategic decision-making contexts.
For a detailed syllabus, please contact Professor Michael Oakes with your request.
Faculty: Joshua Gildea, Director, MBA Business Marketing (B2B) Academy, Fettig/Whirlpool Distinguished Lecturer, Department of Marketing
Classical marketing involves the identification and satisfaction of customers’ needs, wants, and desires through a process of exchange that creates value for both the marketer and the customer. Identification of needs, wants, and desires is typically achieved through some form of research. Satisfaction is achieved by a firm offering the customer the right product/service, at the right price, at the right time, and made available through the right outlets—in short, using the right marketing mix. This sounds simple and intuitive, perhaps it is. However, although intuition has a role to play, marketing implementation is not that simple. Executing successful marketing plans involves a complex set of activities to master, requiring substantial knowledge, experience, and strategic thinking.
The preceding description of marketing is a rather “generic” definition. When it is applied to the industries of life sciences and health care, the marketing function becomes increasingly challenging. Given the complexity of the regulatory environment and the numerous variations of the life science value chain, marketers are faced with developing unique relationships with multiple customers, partners, influencers, and constituencies. Depending on the situation, these may include:
Individual consumers
Physicians
Pharmacies
Wholesalers
Payers
Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs) and Independent Dealer Networks (IDNs)
Organizational buyers such as hospitals and surgical centers
Manufacturers
Manufacturers’ representatives
Through a rigorous combination of lectures, discussion forums, relevant literature, and business cases in the life science industry, this course will introduce students to concepts that are considered critical in understanding the marketing function and its responsibilities in this complex environment. It will also sensitize students to the difficult decisions and activities that marketers undertake in achieving success for their products, services, companies, and ultimately their customers and patients. Finally, it will allow students to practice problem-solving techniques in dissecting complex marketing issues through the use of business cases.
This course is designed with the assumption that students have had little, if any, formal instruction in the marketing discipline. During the early part of the course, students will gain exposure to the essentials of buyer behavior and customer analysis. This exposure will dovetail into an examination of the tools marketers rely on to fulfill customer expectations. These tools include segmentation, positioning, market research, product strategy, pricing, and distribution. We will discuss these tools in the context of current issues in the life sciences arena such as direct-to-consumer promotional strategies, e-commerce, channel relationships, and value pricing.
Admittedly, there is a great deal of synergy between the issues and analyses discussed in marketing and the management decision techniques that executives are exposed to in accounting, economics, finance, information systems, operations, quantitative methods, and strategy. When used appropriately, marketing is the function that often helps to integrate and cement all of these areas from a business planning perspective. This course content will complement the other core courses in this program to provide students with an integrative approach in solving business problems and implementing successful business strategy.
After completing this course, students should be able to:
Explain the role of marketing in creating successful business results. This will be accomplished by both theoretical concepts, as well as, benchmarking successful marketing practices of other industries that could be applied to the life science and/or healthcare companies
Demonstrate how the fundamental principles of marketing are related and can be integrated to create sound business strategies
Develop a methodology of determining customer/consumer needs and create initiatives that help increase sales, increase consumer satisfaction, and create positive ROIs
Conduct a rigorous market analysis of a life science initiative by applying marketing research techniques that are appropriate for the life science and health care industries
Create a comprehensive market plan that is linked to an overall business strategy within a life science or healthcare environment and design appropriate metrics to measure performance
For a detailed syllabus, please contact Professor Joshua Gildea with your request.
Faculty
Student profile 2008—present
More than 200 students from 53 companies
Pharmaceuticals, Disposable Medical Devices, Contract Research, Diagnostics, Animal Health, Biotech, Orthopedics, Distribution, and Healthcare Insurers
Company size: industry leaders as well as startups and smaller firms
Work experience: 2 to 30 years
Joined the industry within the past three years: 15%
Students bring diverse life sciences experience to the program. While the majority hold technical roles in research and development, manufacturing, quality assurance, engineering and clinical/regulatory affairs, students have also come from IT, business development, marketing, medicine, human resources, and finance backgrounds. Four students have participated from offshore locations. Regardless of their background, the ECBLS program increases an individual's understanding of the business side of the life sciences.
How to apply
To qualify for the ECBLS program, students must:
Hold at least a bachelor of science or bachelor of arts degree from an accredited four-year institution
Have at least four years of work experience
Be comfortable working with numbers and financial concepts
Show the potential for broader management responsibility
Individuals applying on their own behalf will need to confirm that they meet the criteria and provide suitable references during an interview with Executive Education staff following application to the program.
Companies who sponsor employees must confirm that the individual meets these criteria in a formal endorsement accompanying application to the program.
Executive Education IU Kelley School of Business William J. Godfrey Graduate & Executive Education Center 1275 E. 10th St., Suite 3070 Bloomington, IN 47405-1703 Attn: Business of Life Sciences
The program costs $17,000 plus the cost of books and course materials (approximately $500) and lodging and travel for the two in-residence periods. Applications received by June 30 will qualify for a $1,000 early application tuition reduction.
There are several payment options:
$17,000 paid before the start of the first course.
$9,000 paid before the start of the first course, and an additional $8,500 before the start of the third course.
$3,700 paid before the start of the first course and no later than 30 days after the start of each subsequent course if the ECBLS qualifies under a student’s company tuition reimbursement plan.
Questions?
Email us to learn more about how the ECBLS program can boost your career.