Together the five of us have established SSES, our joint school devoted to offering our students education, training and inspiration in applied entrepreneurship. So, if you are a student of ours: a special welcome! If not, check out our events and seminars.

From Science to Business

Course number

KTH: ME2806, SSE: 8096, KI: 2XX002, KFK: n/a, SU: FE6612

Schedule

Spring 2012

Dates

Spring 2012: 29 Mar - 24 May

Structure

The course runs after 5 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays in 2-3 hour sessions

Worth: 7.5 ECTS-credits

Taught at

Karolinska Institutet

Swedish course name

Från forskning till företagande – koncept inom bioteknologi

The biotech-industry is like no other industry. This course provides biotech-entrepreneurs with knowledge to commercialise and run a business within their specific field.

The course deals with the development and management of biotechnology businesses, with a focus on commercialising discoveries and inventions. The course builds on experiences and venture journeys by practitioners and researchers with as well Swedish and international backgrounds. The practitioners present specific experiences from starting and running knowledge intensive young businesses or from the financial, legal, political or corporate strategy fields.

The broad picture is given by researchers in sociology or business administration with an insight in academic discoveries, start-up companies, venture capital, business expansion and exits.

Intended learning outcomes

The learning outcomes for the course can be subdivided into two broad areas; i) Biotech business including finance, strategy, law and regulations and ii) Entrepreneurship and innovation. After the course you should be able to:

Biotech business

  • express understanding for the field of biotechnology business
  • understand and demonstrate knowledge of the development and management of biotechnology businesses
  • argue for advantages and disadvantages with public and private financing of early stage companies
  • communicate basics in strategy and tools for science based companies (business plan, collaboration between large and small companies, corporate intelligence, role of boards, human resource management etc)
  • demonstrate theoretical knowledge within the overall legal and regulatory framework for science based businesses (EU and US corporate law, patenting law, regulatory authorities)
  • integrate knowledge of key skill-sets for early-stage entrepreneurship and handle complexity within areas such as market and IP analysis, target product profile, business plan and budgeting

Entrepreneurship and innovation

  • understand and demonstrate how discoveries and inventions are commercialised
  • analyse, clearly communicate and discuss the context of entrepreneurship with both a specialist and non-specialist audience
  • apply your understanding and knowledge of the basics of innovation and entrepreneurship in a broader context and relate to your own field of study
  • use your new skills and continue to independently learn more about the area of innovation and entrepreneurship
  • demonstrate understanding in the theory of clusters of innovation
  • express knowledge for the universities role in the innovation system.

Structure

In order for you as a student to be able to take SSES courses they are all scheduled after your daily classes (or workday), with some margin time to ensure you can commute to campus, pick up a coffee and arrive on time.

This course runs on Tuesdays and Thursdays in two to three hour sessions for some eight weeks, but for a detailed timing check out the schedule in the box to the right. In addition to these sessions, students will work with their thesis outside of class. Teaching will incorporate lectures, debates, and exercises, as well as presentation from leaders in the field. 

Assessment

The end product of the group projects is a 30-page paper and an oral presentation.

Teacher(s)

Carl Johan Sundberg

Centre Director & Course Director, KI

Associate Professor, KI
Mob: +46 (0)70 517 68 86
carl.j.sundberg@ki.se

Dr. Carl Johan Sundberg currently combines two part-time roles at Karolinska; project leader at CMI (the Centre for Medical Innovations) at Karolinska Institutet and Investment Manager of Karolinska Investment Fund (a VC-fund focused on biomedical projects and companies).

Furthermore, he is the Basic Science Editor at Läkartidningen (the Journal of the Swedish Medical Association), the Vice-President of the Swedish Society of Sports Medicine and the Vice-President of Euroscience (www.euroscience.org) - a pan-European non-profit organisation promoting science and technology.

Previous to this Carl Johan was the co-owner and Managing Director of a biomedical education company whose main customers were the pharmaceutical and computer industries. Today he sits on the board of biotech start-up and health service companies.

Madelen Lek

Course Director

Co-ordinator, Unit for Bioentrepreneurship, KI
madelen.lek@ki.se

Dr. Prior her role as Co-ordinator at the Unit for Bioentrepreneurship Madelen Lek pursued her Post doctoral studies in the field of neuroscience focusing on the generation of neurons in the developing retina, at Uppsala Univesitet. She has also conducted research at Karolinska Institutet concerning factors that regulate the generation of specific types of neurons in the ventral parts of the spinal cord during development.

She holds a PhD in Molecular Biology with a focus on developmental neuroscience from Karolinska Institutet and a MSc in Molecular Biology from Umeå Univesitet.