Sean Nicholson is a professor in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management (PAM) at Cornell University, the director of the Sloan Program in Health Administration, and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Prior to joining the PAM department in 2004, Professor Nicholson was a faculty member in the Health Care Systems Department at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He worked for four years as a management consultant with APM and taught high school for two years before enrolling in graduate school. Professor Nicholson received a B.A. from Dartmouth College in 1986 and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1997.
Biotech and Pharmaceutical Management ProgramIn-Person Experience
Course Overview
Cornell University invites professionals from the biotech and pharmaceutical industries to join industry experts, policy makers, and thought leaders for an immersive experience at the Cornell Tech campus in New York City.
Over the course of two days, you will have the opportunity to hear from Cornell faculty conducting leading-edge research in areas ranging from technology’s expanding role in improving health equity to exploring the health insurer perspective on pharmaceuticals. Small panel discussions will provide an opportunity to address today’s most urgent industry topics.
SCHEDULE
- Thursday, September 28, 2023
- 5:00pm – 7:00pm Check-in at Graduate Hotel
- 8:00pm Evening networking event
- Friday, September 29, 2023
- 8:00am Breakfast at the Verizon Executive Education Center
- 9:00am – 5:00pm
- Emerging and Disruptive Trends in Biopharma
- Digital Therapeutics
- DE&I in the Biopharmaceutical Industry
- Lunch and Breaks at the Verizon Executive Education Center
- 6:00pm – 9:30pm Cocktails and networking
- Saturday, September 30, 2023
- 8:00am Breakfast at the Verizon Executive Education Center
- 9:00am – 5:00 pm
- Scientific Innovation
- Value and Access: Payer Perspective in the U.S. and Internationally
- Biopharmaceutical Policy Perspective
- Lunch and breaks at the Verizon Executive Education Center
Key Course Takeaways
- Understand the research and development process for a drug, including how a company makes key drug development decisions
- Articulate the scientific steps needed to get a drug approved by the FDA
- Describe the key patents on a drug, when they were filed, and how the timing affects market exclusivity
- Conduct competitive research in a given drug class or disease area
- Anticipate the pros and cons of a merger, acquisition, or alliance opportunity based on empirical research
- Articulate and critique the market strategy for a given drug class or disease area
- Describe how the science, R&D, and patent decisions affect the drug's performance over its life cycle in an uncertain environment
- Evaluate the lifecycle management strategy for a branded firm to maximize its market exclusivity and a strategy for a generic or biosimilar firm to enter the market expeditiously
- Describe how biotech and pharma firms set prices and negotiate with health insurers
- Describe how firms decide whether to develop a drug independently or codevelop with another firm and how that decision affects the financial outlook of a company
- Articulate how the optimal marketing strategy for a drug differs based on the three key decisions made early in its development cycle and on the drug's performance in clinical trials

How It Works
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Course Authors
Tanzeem Choudhury is a professor in Computing and Information Sciences at Cornell Tech, where she holds the Roger and Joelle Burnell Chair in Integrated Health and Technology. At Cornell, she directs the People-Aware Computing Group and leads the Precision Behavioral Health Initiative, focused on advancing the future of technology-assisted well-being. Professor Choudhury cofounded HealthRhythms Inc, a company whose mission is to add a layer of behavioral health into all of healthcare. She is also the Senior Vice President of Digital Health at Optum Labs. Prior to Cornell, Professor Choudhury was an Assistant Professor in Computer Science at Dartmouth College. She received her Ph.D. from the MIT Media Laboratory.
Professor Choudhury has received the NSF CAREER award (2008), TR35 award (2008), TED fellowship (2009), PopTech Science fellowship (2010), Kavli fellowship (2011), Ubicomp 10-Year Impact Award (2016, 2022). She has been elected as an ACM Fellow (2021) and inducted into the ACM SIGCHI Academy (2022).
Robert Langer is one of 12 Institute Professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); being an Institute Professor is the highest honor that can be awarded to a faculty member. In 1970, Dr. Langer received his B.S. with distinction in Chemical Engineering and was awarded his Sc.D. from MIT in 1974. He has written over 1,500 articles, which have been cited over 383,000 times; his h-index of 307 is the highest of any engineer in history and the second highest of any individual in any field. Dr. Langer’s patents have been licensed or sublicensed to over 400 companies; he is a cofounder of a number of companies, including Moderna. Dr. Langer served as chairman of the FDA’s Science Board (its highest advisory board) from 1999 to 2002.
Dr. Langer is the recipient of over 220 awards, including both the United States National Medal of Science and the United States National Medal of Technology and Innovation (he is one of three living individuals to have received both these honors), Cornell Entrepreneur of the Year, the Charles Stark Draper Prize (often called the Engineering Nobel Prize), Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, Albany Medical Center Prize, Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, Kyoto Prize, Wolf Prize for Chemistry, Millennium Technology Prize, Priestley Medal (the highest award of the American Chemical Society), Gairdner Prize, Hoover Medal, Dreyfus Prize in Chemical Sciences, BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Biomedicine, and the Balzan Prize. Dr. Langer holds 40 honorary doctorates, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Northwestern, and he has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Inventors.
Joydeep Ganguly is Senior Vice President of Corporate Operations at Gilead Sciences. In his current role, Mr. Ganguly is accountable for several strategic functions, including corporate engineering, capital and infrastructure strategy, corporate real estate, risk management, operations research, and global procurement. Serving as the Chief Sustainability Officer for the organization, he also leads Gilead’s environmental sustainability strategies globally. He is a member of the company’s executive ESG committee as well as a board member of the Gilead Foundation. Prior to Gilead, Mr. Ganguly spent 10 years at Biogen in roles of increasing responsibility in the areas of technical operations, manufacturing, and supply chain. In his role as Vice President and General Manager of Biogen’s global manufacturing network, he oversaw the company’s multiscale biologics and small-molecule operations, and he led general operations for the company’s presence in North Carolina.
A past board member of the North Carolina Biosciences Organization (NCBIO) and the North Carolina Museum of Life and Sciences, Mr. Ganguly currently serves on the Board of Directors of Bay Area Council, Biocom, and Science from Scientists, and he is a trustee at Town School for Boys. He earned an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame, an MBA from North Carolina State University, and an MHA from Cornell University. Mr. Ganguly was recently recognized by the National Diversity Council as a Top 50 Diverse Leader in California and was awarded the Leadership Excellence Award by the California Diversity Council.
Arnaub Chatterjee is Chief Product and Solutions Officer at TriNetX, a health technology platform focused on improving clinical research, study design, safety, and clinical trial recruitment. He also serves as Senior Advisor at the Carlyle Group in evaluating investments in the life sciences and healthcare sectors. Additionally, Mr. Chatterjee is passionate about teaching and is a member of the faculties in the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School and in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management at Cornell University.
Prior to TriNetX, Mr. Chatterjee was Senior Vice President and head of Medidata AI, the data sciences business of Medidata Solutions. At Medidata, he was building novel software and data science solutions in clinical, commercial, and imaging analytics for the life sciences industry. Before his time at Medidata, Mr. Chatterjee was Associate Partner in the Pharmaceutical and Medical Products group at McKinsey & Company, where he supported clients on topics such as R&D strategy, portfolio prioritization, and go-to-market. He also held roles as Director of Data Science and Insights within Merck’s Center for Real-World Evidence and as a technology advisor in the Obama administration in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Mr. Chatterjee’s work has been published in multiple peer-reviewed journals such as the Harvard Business Review and Nature, and he has presented at conferences ranging from South by Southwest to the American College of Cardiology. He serves as an advisor and board member to a number of organizations, including the World Economic Forum’s Council for Biotechnology; BioSpring, a life sciences growth equity firm; and CityPods, a solution to scale temporary housing. Mr. Chatterjee holds graduate degrees in health administration (MHA) and public administration (MPA) from Cornell University, and he received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan.
Saif is a member of the Healthcare practice, with deep expertise in the use of advanced analytics across the health care ecosystem.
Saif has worked with biotechnology, large pharmaceutical companies, medical technology manufacturers, provider systems, payors, academic organizations, government entities, not for profits, and investment groups in North America, Europe, and Asia.
Saif provides expertise in a broad range of topics in health care, including:
- Advanced analytics: Use of AI and machine learning in research and development and medical affairs in pharma, biotech, and med tech; provider AI use cases, including deployment and evaluation
- Strategy: Portfolio review, platform build, product launch, indication expansion, value and access
- Real world data: Development of RWD capabilities, programs, delivery of RWE insights
- Diligence: Evaluation of pre-clinical and clinical assets, research platforms, medical technology, digital health offerings for investment (seed to IPO) and acquisition
- Cardiometabolic disease: 130+ peer reviewed articles in cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and health services research, including professional position statements, national guidelines
Previous Work Experience:
- SVP Strategy at Cellarity, a $600M AI-enabled biotech in the Flagship Pioneering ecosystem
- Joint position as Global Head of Data and Analytics Innovation at Cigna and Express Scripts and Medical Director of Cigna Ventures
- Associate Principal and Medical Director, McKinsey & Company
- Lecturer, Yale University School of Medicine
- Education
- Internal medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital
- MD from Yale University School of Medicine
- PhD (epidemiology) from Yale University
- MPH (public health) from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health
- AB (history, psychology, cognitive studies) from Cornell University
Sandeep Duttagupta, Ph.D., is currently the Vice President of Global Pricing and Market Access at Alnylam. Dr. Duttagupta’s responsibilities include overseeing Alnylam’s pricing and access strategies for its entire portfolio, managing the global governance around access, and working closely with regional teams to maximize the value of their programs, and playing a key role in developing future innovative access programs per Alnylam’s Patient Access philosophy.
Dr. Duttagupta has over 25 years of global industry and management consulting experience, specializing in global pricing and market access for biopharmaceutical products. Most recently he was a partner at DRG/Clarivate Consulting and Practice Lead for Global Pricing and Market Access. Dr. Duttagupta joined erstwhile DRG Consulting in 2018 and advised biopharmaceutical clients in their go-to-market pricing and patient access strategies across the U.S., Europe, Japan, China, and emerging markets. He worked with both government and private healthcare payers across the globe to help key pharma and biotech clients maximize access to patients for innovative medicines.
Prior to DRG/Clarivate, Dr. Duttagupta was at CBPartners, a NYC-based boutique life sciences strategy consulting firm specializing in value, access, and pricing, where he held the role of Senior Vice President of Business Development. During his tenure, he helped expand the firm’s business into a substantial number of new clients across various geographies. Prior to this, Dr. Duttagupta spent 17 years at Pfizer, across positions of increasing responsibility, first within Global and U.S. HEOR, then for 10 years in various Global Pricing and Market Access functions. His last position was as the Vice President of P&MA for Pfizer’s Emerging Market Business Unit, where he had the opportunity to reshape internal thinking and business models in low- to middle-income countries across Pfizer’s portfolio. Additionally, on behalf of PhRMA, Dr. Duttagupta was often the face of the pharmaceutical industry in shaping industry-friendly government policies in a large number of countries.
Dr. Duttagupta also serves as an Executive Board member for privately held Aquavit Pharmaceuticals and Celanese (NYSE: CE).
Stephanie A. Wisner co-founded the biotech start-up, Centivax, where she is now Chief Business Officer. She has also advised multiple biotech start-ups on business and commercialization strategy through her consulting business, BioVenture Advising LLC, and spent several years at ARCH Venture Partners. In 2022, she was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Healthcare. She completed her MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, with concentrations in finance, accounting, and entrepreneurship. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in chemistry and chemical biology from Cornell University and was awarded the Einhorn Discovery Research Grant for her independent research on cancer. Her book, Building Backwards to Biotech, was an Amazon #1 New Release in the category of Biotechnology. The book is currently taught as part of bioentrepreneurial programming at multiple top institutions, including Dartmouth College, Cornell University, and others. She is also an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Cornell University. While she no longer gets as much time in the lab, she enjoys the travel and continuous learning this career involves. You can reach Stephanie at bioventureadvising.com.
Andrew Weisenfeld has been an investment banker since 1989. He became a partner at MTS Health Partners in January 2008 and is now one of the firm’s managing partners, primarily responsible for the development of the life sciences M&A advisory practice. Prior to joining MTS, Mr. Weisenfeld was a Managing Director in Banc of America Securities’ Corporate and Investment Banking Healthcare Group. He co-led the firm’s life sciences practice, providing capital raising and strategic advisory services to both publicly traded and private companies. Prior to joining Bank of America in 2003, Mr. Weisenfeld was a managing director at J.P. Morgan and its predecessor company, Chase Securities, leading its Healthcare M&A business across all sectors of healthcare from the middle of 1997 to the beginning of 2003. Prior to joining Chase, he spent over five years in the M&A Group at Merrill Lynch.
Throughout his career, Mr. Weisenfeld has worked on a wide range of advisory transactions including acquisitions, sale transactions, and strategic relationships. Selected life sciences transactions include the sale of Seagen to Pfizer for over $44 billion, the sale of Veloxis to Asahi, the acquisition of Alder by Lundbeck, the merger of Keryx with Akebia, the sale of Colucid to Lilly, the sale of Celator to Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Otsuka’s acquisitions of Avanir and Neurovance, and a number of the most prominent reverse mergers. Mr. Weisenfeld is a board member of Public Health Solutions, a New York-based nonprofit. He is also an active alumnus of Cornell University, acting as a member of the scientific advisory committee of Weill Cornell Medical School’s Daedalus Fund for Innovation as well as a member of both the Cornell Brooks School of Public Policy Advisory Council and Cornell Dyson School’s Undergraduate Program Advisory Council. Mr. Weisenfeld holds an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. from Cornell University.
Amy Mulderry is Senior Vice President and Chief Development Officer at Elevance Health, Inc. In this role, she leads the company’s inorganic growth strategy, including joint ventures and minority investments, mergers and acquisitions, and corporate integration. In 2022, the role of CFO for Carelon was added to her responsibilities. Prior to joining Elevance Health, Ms. Mulderry spent 20 years as a healthcare industry investor managing equity portfolios at top-tier asset management firms.
Ms. Mulderry served as managing partner and portfolio manager for Tavio Capital LLC, where she managed a $600 million long/short equity healthcare hedge fund as a subadvisor to the Blackstone Equity Managed Account Platform and a healthcare-dedicated beta-neutral fund with a primary focus on healthcare services and medical device sectors. Ms. Mulderry also served in previous healthcare portfolio management roles with Citadel Global Equities, SAC Capital, Salomon Brothers Asset Management, and CIBC World Markets Corp. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University,
Emma Pierson is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech and the Technion, as well as a computer science field member at Cornell University. She holds a secondary joint appointment as an Assistant Professor of Population Health Sciences at Weill Cornell Medical College. Professor Pierson develops data science and machine learning methods to study inequality and healthcare. Her work has been recognized by best paper, poster, and talk awards, and with an NSF CAREER award, Rhodes Scholarship, Hertz Fellowship, Rising Star in EECS, MIT Technology Review 35 Innovators Under 35, and Forbes 30 Under 30 in Science. Professor Pierson’s research has been published at venues including ICML, KDD, WWW, Nature, and Nature Medicine, and she has written for The New York Times, FiveThirtyEight, Wired, and various other publications.
Who Should Enroll
- Pharmaceutical professionals involved in marketing, sales, medical affairs, managed markets, manufacturing, or distribution
- Biotechnology professionals
- Health insurance professionals
- Anyone looking to understand business, economic and policy issues affecting biopharmaceutical organizations

What You'll Earn
- Biotech and Pharmaceutical Management Recognition of Achievement from Cornell University’s Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy
- 16 Professional Development Hours (1.6 CEUs)
cornell's Top Minds
your Network
your Career