ALS 454: International Business and Global Health
Course Number: ALS 454
Course Name: International Business and Global Health
Year: Second-year
Semester: Fall
No. Units: 1
Faculty/Instructor(s): Steven Casper
Description
While the pharmaceutical industry has long been a global industry, most R&D took place in the United States and a few European economies; global activities primarily involved creating sales and regulatory affairs offices to serve national markets. In recent years, however, the globalization of world markets and the rapid development of sophisticated bioscience industries in India, China, and other emerging markets are creating a reorganization of the pharmaceutical and related bioscience industries. Moreover, the creation of global value chains has created opportunities to develop new and perhaps more effective policies to lessen the long-standing global health crisis afflicting hundreds of millions of individuals in poorer countries.
This course will equip students with tools to effectively understand global marketplace issues within the life sciences. The course has three broad aims. First, students will learn how to assess bioscience market opportunities within different regions of the world, including advanced economies in East Asia and Europe and rapidly emerging marketplaces such as China and India. Second, students will explore the causes and consequences of globalization, focusing on the increased ability of firms, both small and large, to develop global value chains that integrate research, development and other marketplace activities from regions around the world. Finally, the course will explore global health issues, exploring a variety of policy perspectives oriented towards creating drugs for neglected diseases.
All HBS cases readings should be purchased in a reader available at the Huntley Bookstore. Due to strict copyright enforcement by Harvard Business School, purchasing the casebook is mandatory for this class. Unauthorized copying of HBS cases for use in this class will be treated as a KGI honor code violation.
Students should also buy the following book from the Huntley Bookstore (or order it on-line).
All other readings will be available on the Sakai system. This includes the "PEI Bioscience Cluster" and "GAVI Alliance" cases, both of which are KGI cases written especially for this class.
Learning Objectives
- Become familiar with analytic tools to assess bioscience related market opportunities within developed and emerging economies.
- Examine how differences in the structure of national and regional economies impact how companies from different areas of the world develop competitive strategies.
- Explore the development of global value chains in the pharmaceutical and other bioscience related industries and understand typical managerial problems they create.
- Examine the causes of global health problems in different disease areas and different regions of the world, and become familiar with long-standing population-based and clinical approaches to combating global health problems.
- Examine how globalization processes have lead to the creation of new approaches to drug development towards neglected diseases, including public-private partnerships, non-profit pharmaceutical companies, and company oriented approaches.
- Development of professional skills - teamwork, project management, and both written and spoken forms of communication.
Grading
Short quizzes (3 x 5% each) 15%
Team project 25%
Final examination 30%
Class participation 30%
Required Texts