SEMESTER: Fall 19

COURSE NUMBER: EWMBA296.11

This course is dual listed with the FTMBA Program

COURSE TITLE: Life Science Marketing

UNITS OF CREDIT: 1 unit

INSTRUCTOR: Jeffrey Ford

E-MAIL ADDRESS: jeff_ford@berkeley.edu
  
MEETING DAY(S)/TIME: Sunday, 10/27 and Sunday, 11/17, 9AM to 5PM

Please note the unorthodox nature of this course, which meets all day on 2 Sundays. To earn a passing grade, you must attend BOTH class sessions in their entirety.

PREREQUISITE(S): Core Marketing

CAREER FIELD:

• This course will be most useful for those interested in pursuing a career in the Life Sciences and/or Healthcare industries with a specific interest in sales, marketing, product management and/or communications.
• This course will also be highly useful for future healthcare and life sciences leaders that want to understand the unique nature in which products are marketed and sold in the industry.

CLASS FORMAT: This course is built around four key areas around which a marketing executive must excel to maximize the opportunity for his / her brand(s).  Each area will area will be covered over approximately half a day (4 hours). The experiential case work will focus primarily on the bio-pharmaceutical industry though lectures and class discussions that will venture into the MedTech and Digital Health sectors.
 
Each stage will include a case designed to highlight methods and analytical techniques relevant to the topics being explored. We will build upon the cases with lectures and class discussions. We will make use of the tools from core marketing, statistics and strategy to understand a marketing executive’s options and to inform our recommendations about how to best proceed. Outside speakers will also be used to highlight key topics and share real-world experiences.

REQUIRED READINGS: The course will utilize required case and topical readings to enhance discussions and provide contextual background for student learning.

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE: Students’ grades will be based on the following inputs:

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:
Marketing is a critical component of organizations operating in the Life Sciences responsible for interfacing with customers, competitors, collaborators, and the broader ecosystem. Historically marketing has involved planning and communicating the brand story, value, promotional mix, and dissemination of ideas, goods, and services.

Marketers in Life Sciences face unique challenges due to the need to understand and appeal to a broad range of stakeholders which includes patients, payers, physicians, health systems, government and advocacy groups. The evolution and increasing complexity of customer dynamics across the healthcare ecosystem are challenging the fundamental roles of a marketer. As a result, leading bio-pharma marketing organizations are transforming to win in today’s world.

The purpose of this course is to prepare future leaders in the Life Sciences and Healthcare industry to understand the methods and develop winning strategies used to communicate a brand story to customers.

Objectives
This course is designed to provide students with:

• An understanding the stakeholder landscape in Healthcare and the impact these stakeholders have on the development and communication of the brand’s message
• A review of leading and emerging practices in Life Sciences Marketing
• The ability to identify unmet customer needs and translate those into actionable insights a brand can use in the formulation of its strategy
• The ability to develop winning brand strategies and tactics
• Experience utilizing foundational marketing methods (e.g. Buying Process, Segmentation, Value Analytics etc.)

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:

Jeff Ford is a Partner in Deloitte’s Strategy practice with over 18 years specializing in the Life Science and Healthcare industry. Jeff is experienced leading commercial and medical strategy engagements with medical device, molecular diagnostics and pharmaceutical companies. His experience spans corporate and competitive strategy, innovation and growth strategy, therapeutic area strategy, portfolio strategy and market access strategy. He has deep experience in the metabolic, respiratory, immunology, oncology, and cardiovascular disease areas.

His recent experiences include:

• Assisted an executive team with the prioritization of their therapeutic investments
• Developed commercial strategies in the CV and Metabolic space for a launch product across North America
• Identified, shaped, and developed a new medical device product concept with a medical organization in the cardio-metabolic space to best target patient unmet needs
• Developed value stories for multiple assets to help the pharmaceutical manufacturer both understand the comparative value of their product and also to support external payer, provider, and patient messaging
• Developed payer value propositions for a CV brand that was exploring services to wrap around the product
• Developed a product commercialization and market launch assessment for an early stage Retinal device asset
• Assisted client with development of a global regulatory and commercialization for a phase III respiratory asset
• Created a franchise plan for mid-sized pharma’s commercial Immunology portfolio of products
• Developed an inorganic growth strategy for a medical device player in the Diabetes management space to accelerate growth and insulate the business from emerging macro trends
• Worked with a manufacturer to develop franchise plans and tactics for products in urology, transplant and dermatology
• Identified a new patient engagement strategy and building an adherence offering to support the manufacturers heart failure patients

Prior to Deloitte, Jeff worked at Genentech in their market planning organization. He worked on the Lucentis, Lytics and Avastin franchises. Jeff holds a MBA and a MPH (Public Health) from UC Berkeley.