As a university we are increasingly offering our students opportunities to develop their business and enterprise skills as part of their degrees.
One of the most competitive business areas is in the field of bioscience, and Dr Jessica Teeling, Associate Professor in Immunology within the Centre for Biological Sciences, knows first-hand how tough this area is. Having developed a drug, she then successfully marketed it and used her experience to set up a module in Bioscience Business.
Tell us about your background and how you took a drug to market
I am bioscientist with a strong interest in translational immunology. I became very interested in immunotherapy and secured a position as a scientist in a biotech company called Genmab, which develops fully human antibodies for the treatment of cancer and autoimmunity.
I was responsible for developing a new antibody, called Ofatumumab, for the treatment of leukaemia, and showed that our next-generation antibody outperformed the old drug in both preclinical tests and, importantly, in patients with a certain type of leukaemia called CLL. This led to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval in 2009 and our antibody, now called Arzerra, was licenced by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK ) for a record agreement in the order of $1bn.
Where did you learn your marketing and business skills?
During my time at Genmab, I was involved with all the steps of drug development: from target evaluation and preclinical development, to clinical trial design and regulatory affairs, and finally production and marketing of our therapeutic antibodies.
As a member of the research and development team, I was supported by patent lawyers who taught me the ins and outs of intellectual property. As an employee of the company I received regular updates from my marketing team and was invited to suggest names for the antibody. Along with my experience during my PhD, this gave me an excellent overview of the basic principles of drug discovery and how to bring a drug to market. One of the main lessons I learned was that teamwork is key.
What does the new module, Bioscience Business, involve?
Bioscience Business is a new third-year module in the Centre for Biological Sciences that covers the basic principles of drug discovery. Run for the first time in the 2014–15 academic year, the module started with science seminars on examples of successful drug discovery and ‘drug pipe-lines’. Teams ofstudents then focused on developing their own new drug, based on a target evaluation in the first semester and then bringing their idea to market in the second term.
The students also have to develop material to sell their new product to their target audience, for example generate a website or a company logo. Throughout, they were advised and supported by external professionals on topics such as patent law and intellectual property, clinical trials and marketing.
Finally, team members pitch their business plan to an expert panel, a type of ‘Dragon’s Den’, including a chief scientific officer of a successful pharmaceutical company and various academic colleagues working in translational research. This panel then scrutinizes the business plan and makes the decision whether to ‘invest’ in the students company.’
How does the new module develop our students’ employability?
We incorporate presentation and communication skills, teamwork and commercial awareness in the module: three key skills that future employers look for, the pharmaceutical industry in particular.
The module provides an opportunity to directly interact with academic researchers and clinicians in drug discovery, patent lawyers, and team leaders and marketing managers from pharma and our own Research and Innovation Service (RIS). This gives the students confidence and inspiration to be innovative and creative.
In addition, the University has been highly successful in offering students industry placements, giving them the opportunity to experience life, for up to one year, in our most successful pharmaceutical companies, including GSK, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly. Securing a placement at these companies is competitive but highly rewarding as students gain experience in working in a professional environment in drug discovery, regulatory affairs and marketing. By generating the Bioscience Business module, we can offer development of these skills to more of our students and increase their employability. Perhaps a next step is to develop an MSc course in drug development?
We are already seeing that students taking this module are highly employable and are staying within the field of biomedicine. For example, we know students taking this module have been offered graduate jobs at GSK and others have been inspired by the science and continued their degree with an MSc in Biomedical Sciences.
How do you measure its success as a module?
The feedback we have received from students and academics involved in this module has been very positive.
Students commented:
It was a unique learning experience and we learned teamwork, presentation etc.
While I was applying for graduate jobs, companies were very interested in this aspect of my degree and I actually got an internship from this experience.
The workshop on marketing was especially good; it’s a topic we would not have learned about in our degrees.
The module was oversubscribed in the following academic year, showing a high demand for this enterprise module amongst Biological Sciences students.
