Life Sciences Entrepreneurship Development Program

The Life Sciences Entrepreneurship Development Program is an immersive and experiential training program created by an unprecedented collaboration between Montréal InVivo, the life sciences and health technology (LSHT) cluster, the Faculty of Pharmacy at Université de Montréal, and Concordia University’s John Molson Executive Centre.

You will learn cutting-edge managerial techniques, providing you strategies to develop and grow an innovative business. Divided into ten intensive 2-day modules, you will experience more than 150 hours of relevant strategic content. Designed to strengthen the skills of all LSHT innovative thinkers, you will be able to:

• Apply leading management techniques from the lab to the market
• Obtain valuable industry insights and tools to speed up the growth of your business
• Stand out by bringing high-impact knowledge to your business

Who will benefit?

• Students
• Academic researchers
• Management employees in the life sciences sector
• Off-sector professionals dealing with life sciences (e.g. insurance, banking)

Pharmaceuticals and devices development isn’t a linear journey and operates more and more in a virtual environment where stakeholders’ roles change. To be successful in this field, you need to have a good understanding of the different challenges and opportunities stakeholders encounter. In this module, you will learn how different groups in the LSHT ecosystem relate to one another and what their roles and expectations are. Through real-life situations and case studies, you will look at the complete development cycle from discovery to market and witness how having the ability to rapidly map and connect key stakeholders to important milestones is a crucial part of producing a realistic development plan.

>> Session may be taken à la carte

Understanding the market access and regulatory environments in the LSHT industry is key to successfully commercializing projects. Using real-life situations and case studies, this module explores the different challenges and perspective stakeholders encounter, as well as the strategic issues and market decisions that researchers and LSHT companies might consider at different stages to optimize business development.

>> Session may be taken à la carte

This interactive module aims to give you a head start against your competitors by introducing you to the world of design thinking. This method focuses on solving problems by paying attention to the solution instead of the problem itself. Using design-thinking concepts such as rapid iterations, human-centred design, and collaboration and teamwork, you will learn and practise how to apply this strategy to your own ideas.

In this module, you will continue to delve into the world of design thinking which will allow you to understand the concepts on a deeper level in order to retrieve them more easily for use in the future.

Early in your startup's journey, your goal is to validate your business idea by getting out of the building and interviewing people who might have something to tell you about the problem they would like to solve—and by making sense of what they tell you.

This module will introduce you to the process of business modelling as a thinking framework that can help you guide your idea into a sellable product. To do that, you will need to know how to run insightful discovery interviews, and how to identify and validate your customer segments—the customers who will be buying your product. 

Medical technologies offer a wide range of solutions in the health system. In the form of software or hardware solutions, used for screening, diagnosis, treatment or rehabilitation, they considerably modify the offer of care. During this session, you will see the different steps that must be taken to bring the medical device from proof of concept to commercialization, including regulatory steps, licensing, preclinical and clinical validation, financing, and deployment in the health network. A dozen medical technology entrepreneurs, project leaders' specialist coaches and practitioners will present the innovation journey with many examples from their personal trajectory.

>> Session may be taken à la carte

As leaders, we can only affect and change things of which we are consciously aware. This is why the first step in building executive or managerial presence is to be self-aware. In order to succeed, leaders need to possess the curiosity to uncover blind spots and the vulnerability to openly seek feedback. This module focuses on the art of leadership—the language, models and frameworks that, when used appropriately, can create a positive impact on individuals, teams and organizations. We will hone in on building your skills in emotional intelligence in order to equip you with the attitudes and behaviours needed to forge higher quality relationships with customers and colleagues.

Before you start executing your business idea, you first need to function as a learning organization whose goal is not to sell but to acquire as much unbiased information as possible, about your customers and what they need, to avoid spending time, money and resources on something that no one is willing to pay for.

This module will introduce you to the skills that you need to discover your customer personas who will be buying your product or service—their jobs, pains, gains and motivators, as well as the personas who influence the buying decisions of your customer personas. All this will lead you to identify the value that your product or service will offer to them.

You have 30 seconds to pitch your most brilliant idea to a stranger. How do you introduce yourself? And what do you choose to say?
This module will help you tell your story and build an effective elevator pitch that captures the listener's attention and leaves them wanting to know more about you and your idea. It will also help you identify the size and worth of your idea in the market, to make your story and the opportunity you are pitching even more compelling.
You only get one chance to pitch your idea… Make it count!

As you get closer to a validated customer segment and the identified value propositions for this segment, you will need to start thinking about the viability of your business model—how will you make money from this adventure, and what will be the main cost drivers?

This module will introduce you to financial and cash flow modelling, as a process for quantifying your ideas by putting numbers in your business model (BMC) to test assumptions and understand key consequences of these assumptions on the viability of your business.

Validating your business idea starts with customer discovery interviews. But true validation comes when someone actually pays to have access to your product or service. This module will introduce you to the basics of “marketing” and “sales.”  You will learn about what it takes to create the marketing assets you need to communicate your story, and the steps you need to follow to get your story out into the world. And you will learn about the sales processes and mindset you need to be able to get, keep and grow your customer base, starting with your first customer.

This module will act as an introduction to the core concepts of financial management and firm value maximization. Key concepts covered in this module will include valuing corporate securities, estimating cash flow, and making capital budget decisions. By the end of this module, you will understand conceptual frameworks underlying valuation and asset pricing and mechanics that determine the firm’s cost of capital.

The objective of this module is to ensure that you understand the relation between a company’s strategic decisions, business activities and financial statements. Using primarily case studies, we will focus on the different financing models in the LSHT industry and how risk is managed. We will also examine how boards of directors and investors can gauge the effectiveness of managerial stewardship in the creation of shareholder value. 

>> Session may be taken à la carte

Improved biological understanding in oncology has led to unprecedented therapeutic breakthroughs. In this module, we will focus on the exploration of new developments in drugs for cancer and entrepreneurial opportunities in cancer biology. We will discuss the challenges in drug development that the field experiences as well as highlight opportunities from the perspectives of different stakeholders. This session will help you understand the emerging trends in oncological drug development in order to foster an entrepreneurial mindset specific to the field. 

>> Session may be taken à la carte

In this module, you will gain an understanding about the biopharma ecosystem from commercialization to consumers. Using both case studies and real-life situations, you will explore important elements of marketing and clinical research such as the necessity of planning early, involving the key stakeholders, public relations, the need for a comprehensive plan, and risk management.

>> Session may be taken à la carte

Innovation, cost and disruptive technologies have led to new LSHT business models that improve productivity, increase success rate and accelerate market access. This module will introduce:

• new business models such as living labs, innovative manufacturing, virtual organization and open innovation
• disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence, deep learning, big data, and 3D printing
• new cooperative strategies based on diversity and inclusion to improve productivity
• emerging trends to introduce the innovation into the health care system.

We will examine the opportunities and challenges these concepts offer to use real-life situations and case studies. 

>> Session may be taken à la carte

By improving their command of the supply chain, companies deliver maximum value to the consumer while minimizing costs. This module covers the fundamental decisions and trade-offs related to the operations and supply chain management of a firm. We will examine strategic issues such as industry dynamics and competition, and the response firms might develop to handle such issues. You will also have the chance to explore some of the organizational, managerial, and other conditions required for firms to maximize their operational innovation. 

>> Session may be taken à la carte

It is essential that you know how to deliver excellent pitches in various environments. This module will give you the tools needed to do just that. Core principles such as who, why, what, how and when will be explained, and will provide you with practical skills for delivering your pitch wherever you may be. You will practise these skills in a “Dragon’s Den” style simulation with judges, and will receive feedback from experienced coaches and from your peers.

This program was developed with the funding of

Experienced, passionate, innovative. These experts are leaders in their field:

Contact us if you wish to receive more information about this program.