Pope Woodhead welcomes
Cambridge University Masters students
16th March 2010

Over the past four years Pope Woodhead & Associates has built a strong relationship with the Masters in Bioscience Enterprise (MBE) programme, the University of Cambridge’s postgraduate life science business course. This course is based at the Institute of Biotechnology, and has a close affiliation with the Judge Business School. It covers the commercial exploitation of the latest advances in biotechnology, spanning drug development, medical devices, diagnostics and agri-industry, together with analytical training and development of financial and management skills required in the life science commercial sector. Leveraging on Pope Woodhead’s depth of expertise, the MBE syllabus now includes Pharmaco-vigilance and Risk Management – a module designed and delivered by Dr Swapu Banerjee, Head of Developing Consulting.

Many MBE students have been integrated into the company during their business internship placements, working with our partners on topics covering to date:
• Commercial impact of different market access and entry strategies for biologicals
• Biosimilars - complexity and uncertainty management
• Market access and value demonstration of pharmaceutical products within Europe
• Practical approaches to improve compliance with anti-depressants
• Assessing the impact of EU risk management plans
• Global issues in implementing Risk Management programmes
• Continuing professional development for pharmaceutical physicians
• Innovative commercial agreements for pharmaceutical reimbursement.

At Pope Woodhead, the students have the opportunity to put their learning into practice, researching their chosen topic with guidance from their project supervisor, and preparing an MPhil dissertation to be assessed by the University. Following graduation MBE students generally take up executive or consultancy roles in the life science sector or progress their professional careers in medicine, finance and law.

This year’s students, Yi Chung Law, Sean Arenson and Yan Lin Lye, will be undertaking projects looking at talent recruitment in the pharma industry, commercial performance indicators, and how the western pharma industry can successfully engage with China.