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Breakfast Roundtable Discussions
Friday Breakfast Roundtable Discussions
David Terry, MBA ’98, Chair
Communication
Disease Management
Financing
Healthcare Services
International
Life Sciences
Communication:
HEALTH-FOCUSED SEARCH ENGINES:
A NEW WAY TO COMMUNICATE WITH HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS
Laird Kelly, OPM 12, is Founder and President of RSi Communications, a medical communications company that specializes in the use of innovative technology to educate healthcare professionals.
New, custom designed search engines are emerging that are changing the way physicians find information and communicate with pharma and medical device companies. This Roundtable will focus on new trends in how physicians look for clinical information; what they find useful and frustrating about pursuit of answers online; how medical societies have responded by developing programs to award CME credit to physicians for "finding answers;" how the trend to move past "portal" strategies such as WebMD and Merck Medicus will affect existing and future plans to use the Internet as a communications tool.
MARKETING TO THE PHYSICIAN IN PRIVATE PRACTICE
Arthur Fried, MBA ‘83, is President of Healthcare Media Group, which works with large pharmaceutical companies to assist their professional marketing efforts.
John Seitz, OPM 20, is the CEO of Achievmed, a company he created to provide “performance training” for the non-clinical skills related to operating a medical practice.
The physician remains in the position to direct or influence the vast majority of healthcare spending. This includes medical care, testing, and pharmaceuticals. For most healthcare companies, it is both a major challenge and a major expense to market to the physician. This Roundtable will open for discussion successful strategies for marketing to the physician in all sizes and specialties of private practice.
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Disease Management:
GETTING FAT FROM OBESITY: THE BUSINESS OF WEIGHT LOSS
Mark Francis, OPM 31, is a Managing Director of Rosetta Stone Ventures and serves as a “mentor capitalist” to executives of early stage health care firms.
Over the past year there has been tremendous attention focused upon the obesity epidemic eating away at the health of Americans. In 2004, the Centers for Disease Control reported that 65% of Americans are overweight or obese – leading to 300,000 premature deaths and $117 billion of increased costs annually. This Roundtable will examine the weight/obesity marketplace, review clinical evidence, discuss elements of successful programs and interventions, and encourage discussion about best practices, innovations, and other untapped opportunities.
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Financing:
CORPORATE vs. INVESTOR PERSPECTIVES ON PHARMACEUTICAL AND BIOTECHNOLOGY DEAL MAKING
Jeremy Goldberg, MBA ‘88, is the Managing Director, Corporate Development, Endo Pharmaceuticals; previously he was a venture capital investor with ProQuest Investments.
Terry McGuire, MBA ‘86, is Managing General Partner and a co-founder of Polaris Venture Partners.
Geoffrey Duyk, MD, PhD, is a Managing Director with TPG Ventures. Previously he was President of R&D at Exelixis, and prior to that, one of the founding scientists at Millennium Pharmaceuticals.
Competition for products, investment capital, and liquidity is heating up among financial and strategic investors. It is essential that young companies seeking capital understand the perspective of both venture capital backers and that of pharmaceutical and biotech companies, which can be financial and strategic partners of innovative companies. In this Roundtable, three executives with a mix of VC and industry experience will discuss the tradeoffs between partnering with financial and strategic investors.
HEALTH COSTS CONTINUE TO INCREASE UNCONTROLLABLY. WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?
Kelly McCrann, MBA ‘80, is a Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners responsible for their healthcare portfolio.
Increasing pharmaceutical costs, new medical technology, unjustified malpractice awards, the aging population – we hear these explanations for our uncontrollable double digit medical inflation every day. Are these explanations correct? Are these the real drivers of health cost inflation? If not, what are the real drivers? If we ever hope to control health cost inflation, we must begin with a clear understanding of what’s driving it. This Roundtable will focus on developing a deeper, more quantitative understanding of health cost inflation along with a prioritized set of thoughts on how we can effectively address this issue. This is an issue that impacts all facets of the healthcare industry, and the HBS Health Industry Alumni Association is in a unique position to form a clearer understanding of this critical national problem. The hope is that this discussion will lead to an ongoing dialogue with the ultimate goal of outlining a plan for truly quantifying the drivers of healthcare inflation.
PRIVATE EQUITY: KEY CHOICES AND CURRENT DYNAMICS
William Lear, MBA ‘68, is the Midwest Regional Managing Partner of Focus Enterprises, a DC based boutique investment banking firm that works with small to mid-size companies.
Barbara Piette, MBA ‘86, is a 13 year VC veteran and is currently President of Blackwood Capital, where she invests in small to mid-sized private and public company management teams.
This Roundtable features two hosts with considerable experience in advising and investing in young healthcare companies. The discussion will focus on how early to mid-stage companies should approach the private capital markets. Key aspects of the discussion will include: Paradigms for deciding which form of private equity would best suit a company; The current state of private capital markets; The impact of developing political and world dynamics on investing decisions; Strategies for approaching sources of capital; and what to expect from investors.
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Healthcare Services:
ENHANCING PHYSICIAN RELATIONSHIPS IN ORDER TO IMPROVE CARE QUALITY AND EFFICIENCY
Robert B. Harrington, MBA ‘72, is a co-founder of Cambridge Management Group, an advisory firm working exclusively in the health service sector.
Physicians’ relationships with each other, with nursing and technical colleagues, and with hospital management are at a low ebb and often precariously inadequate for patient safety and economic stability. What are the keys to enabling physicians to re-engage with each other and a wide range of collaborators? After a brief synopsis of deteriorating physician relationships, this Roundtable will focus on specific suggestions for how to restore and sustain communication, trust, and collaboration among doctors, nurses, and organizational executives in order to reduce errors, improve outcomes, and increase efficiency.
THE IMPACT OF CONSUMER DRIVEN HEALTH ON TRADITIONAL HEALTHCARE BUSINESS MODELS
Charles Beever, MBA ’78, is a Vice President with Booz Allen Hamilton who leads the firm’s worldwide pharmaceutical practice.
Karla Elrod, MBA ‘88, is a Principal with Booz Allen Hamilton and a member of the firm’s Health Practice.
Consumer driven health is on the rise. Increasing healthcare costs, new tax regulations for health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs), and an overall increased interest by consumers to manage their own health finance and care decisions are some of the primary drivers of this trend. The fact that major bets have been placed by insurers, employers, individuals, and even governments on consumer-directed health plans (CDHP) gives additional credence to consumer driven health as a dominant force. If this trend is real, there could be substantial changes in traditional healthcare business models. This Roundtable will foster a discussion on the impact consumer driven health may have on key healthcare models such as pharmaceutical research and development, medical technology innovation, and healthcare delivery and payment.
THE FUTURE OF RELATIONSHIPS AMONG HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS AND PRIVATE SECTOR PAYORS
Sonny Bloom, MBA ‘75, is Vice President of Concentra Preferred Systems, which serves as an intermediary between payors and providers.
Pam Germain, MBA ‘85, is Vice President of Managed Care and Outreach of Roswell Park Cancer Institute, the first Cancer Center in the United States.
This Roundtable Discussion will focus on the need to change and improve current interactions among healthcare providers and the major purchasers of healthcare: insurers and employers. A key driver of this change will need to be a shift from a short-term survival perspective to a long-term view that enables net gains for all parties. For those who've read Michael Porter and E.O. Teisberg’s June 2004 HBR article "Redefining Competition in Health Care" and want to jump in to the fray, join us for a lively discussion.
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International:
SWITZERLAND – EUROPE’S NEW LIFE SCIENCES CORRIDOR
Doris Klietmann, Simmons MBA ‘00, is Vice President of the Swiss Access International Business Translocation Services, a company addressing the needs of companies planning to relocate to Switzerland.
Willi Meier is CEO of the Greater Zurich Area AG, a marketing organization that assists companies interested in moving to the Zurich area.
Christoph von Arb, PhD, is Consul General, Consulate of Switzerland, and Director, Consul of the Swiss House for Advanced Research and Education (SHARE) in Cambridge, MA; formerly, Dr. von Arb was Scientific Advisor of the Swiss State Secretary for Science
Switzerland is home to multiple major pharmaceutical companies, more than 500 medical device companies, and a growing biotech industry. The greater Zurich area is a major European center for medical technology and biotechnology, with resources including: thousands of highly trained and multilingual scientists, engineers, and technicians; over 40 universities and technical colleges; over 300 research groups and research laboratories in public institutions; and numerous research parks, business parks, and technology transfer institutions. This Roundtable will discuss the benefits and process for locating a company or a division in Europe in general and Switzerland in particular.
US OR INTERNATIONAL TRIALS?
STRATEGIES FOR CLINICAL EVALUATION OF MEDICAL DEVICES
Kate Stohlman, MBA ‘84, is the VP of Quality Assurance and Regulatory Affairs for Viacor, a start-up medical device company designing a cardiac implant.
This Roundtable will focus on key strategic decisions and process steps required to successfully bring a new medical device through to approval. Key points to be discussed will include: clinical trial planning; communications; the process of approvals; regional differences in study ethics; and the role of hospitals, PI’s, committees, consultants, and competent authorities.
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Life Sciences:
BUILDING SUSTAINABLE LIFE SCIENCE COMPANIES
Stuart Collinson, PhD, MBA ‘89, is a partner at Forward Ventures and a director of Vertex Pharmaceuticals and several private companies. Previously he was Chairman and CEO of Aurora Biosciences.
There are numerous models for building sustainable life science companies. In this Roundtable Dr. Collinson will discuss his experiences with building and investing in these companies. Discussion topics will also include: private equity valuations and trends, various liquidity options, the shifting relationships between large pharma and biotech, and value inflection points in R&D.
IMPROVING RETURNS ON NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN DRUG DISCOVERY AND DEVELOPMENT
Kate Torchilin, PhD, MBA ‘03, is Manager of Strategic Initiatives in Life and Laboratory Sciences at Thermo Electron Corporation, focusing on strategic planning and M&A.
During the last decade, there have been an unprecedented number of new discoveries and technology developments in life sciences research tools. Genomics, proteomics, high throughput screening, high content analysis, and systems biology are just a few new techniques and approaches that became an inherent part of biomedical discovery. However, investing into new research technologies has not translated into increased efficiency of pharmaceutical R&D. Many industry sources suggest that the rate of innovation may even be slowing down. This Roundtable will explore why this is so, how this trend may change in the future, ideas for new business models that could create improvements, and what new processes big pharma and biotech need to adopt in order to increase efficiency of R&D.
THE NEXT GREAT WAVE OF MEDICINE – CELL THERAPIES AND REGENERATIVE MEDICINE – WILL WE SEE IT ANY TIME THIS DECADE?
Mina Sooch, MBA ‘93, is general partner at Apjohn Ventures Fund, a new early stage life sciences venture capital fund focused on investments in the Midwest.
With the lackluster performance of pharma companies in the past few years, and with very few new approved small molecules to treat disease, different approaches to complex, genetic, and chronic diseases are needed. One exciting approach is cellular therapy and regenerative medicine. There are a handful of biotech start-ups that have been developing products in this space since 1990 – but none of them have produced drugs that have reached the market yet. This Roundtable will focus on the barriers to commercial success: tens of millions of venture capital dollars needed; management teams with new skills; new criteria at the FDA; physicians and hospitals that can adopt these more complex practices; reimbursement dollars; available and standardized manufacturing facilities; and working technology. We will also discuss the opportunities for investors and companies to accelerate the pace of commercialization of these innovative products, and how the debate on the use and funding of embryonic stem cells directly influences the quality and pace of development of cellular based solutions in this field.
PRIVATIZATION: A FLAWED BUSINESS MODEL FOR FUNDING STEM CELL RESEARCH
Ken Irvine, MBA ‘66, works on Wall Street and is on the Development Committee of the Alpha-1 Foundation, which funds stem cell research. He is a founding member of CAMR.
Peter Van Etten, MBA ‘73, is President and CEO of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International, the leading promoter and private funder of embryonic stem cell research for the last four years.
The White House has essentially privatized stem cell research – according to The Wall Street Journal the private sector is spending “many tens of millions” of dollars for embryonic stem cell research, likely exceeding spending by the federal government. This privatization model could be optimal if in partnership with the NIH, but there is currently no coordination among the research parties. In addition, there are fewer companies doing stem cell work today than two years ago, driven by the fact that investments in this field require a long-term horizon with uncertain economic returns. This Roundtable will discuss the implications this funding structure will have on future public and private investments, and how the pace of basic research and progress from the lab bench to the patient’s bedside will be impacted.
YOU LOOK MARVELOUS:
ARE LIFESTYLE PRODUCTS THE FUTURE OF BIOPHARMA AND MED TECH?
Philip Borden, MBA ‘03, is an associate at Oxford Bioscience Partners, a large healthcare venture capital firm that has made several investments in lifestyle focused companies.
One of the most fascinating trends within healthcare is the increasing focus placed on “lifestyle” products. “Lifestyle” products are defined as technologies and products designed to treat quality of life issues rather than life-threatening ones. Based on some stunning successes, e.g. Viagra, biopharmaceutical, medical device, and diagnostic companies have increasingly focused on these quality-of-life products. This Roundtable has three goals: (1) to discuss why lifestyle products are attracting so much recent attention, (2) to address the unique challenges faced by both the products and by the companies developing the products, and (3) to speculate on the future for these types of products.
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