2024-2025 Law School Catalog

LAW-2058 Biotech for Lawyers and Business

The biotechnology field is a large industry that continues to grow. While scientists are often the ones to start biotech companies, it is the lawyers and business people that keep the companies going. This job sector is rapidly growing and understanding how a biotechnology company is born, lives and dies will give the students a unique understanding of this business. In this class students will be asked to come up with an idea for a biotechnology company and throughout the class will build a biotech company around that idea, piece by piece. Each week we will spend the majority of the time discussing general principles of the biotechnology business. Each week some time will be spent on student projects where students work with each other and with the Professor to grow their biotech companies. The final project will be a presentation and a full report on the company that they developed during the semester. Faculty comments: Grading Weekly Assignments 20% Class Presentation 30% Final Project 40% Class Discussion 10% Weekly Assignments: The weekly assignments are the building blocks of the final project. They are designed to have students take what was discussed in class that day and apply them to the building of their own "biotech company". The weekly assignments will begin with the students generating a "great idea" based on the criteria for great ideas that is presented in class. They will spend the entire semester building a "company" around this idea, piece by piece. Class Presentation This presentation will be given the last day of class. Each student will give a power point presentation on the idea, research design, IP development, investment strategy, business model and business plan, regulatory and FDA requirements, clinical trial process, IPO plans and final disposition of the company (exit strategy). In essence this is the integration of the weekly assignments and makes the basis for the final project. Final Project For this project the students will take all of the weekly projects that they did during the semester and expand on each section to develop a final report on their "company". This will include everything from the idea generation through development, incorporation, investment and to the final exit strategy. Class Discussions This course is designed to be interactive with student ideas being vetted and worked on through discussions with their peers in class and with the Professors. Time will be set aside each class period to discuss projects and help students past hurdles in the development of their companies. [698] Course updated: March 29, 2017

Credits

2