Health Sector Case Competition

Post By:
Katy Perkins
MBA, class of 2013

Pictured from left to right: Mike Schildkraut, Director of Strategic Marketing; Rhonda Rickey, Director of Global Alliance Management; BU MBA students Katy Perkins; Ritika Mahal; Sara Meinke; and Jin Chon, Senior Director of Global CNS and Strategic Product Planning

As a team, we were very excited to represent BU at the BAHM Case Competition! We had a great experience, resulting in third place.

BAHM is the Business School Alliance for Health Management. There are ten participating schools:

· Arizona State University W.P. Carey School of Business

· Boston University School of Management

· Duke University Fuqua School of Business

· Harvard Business School

· Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management

· University of California – Berkeley

· University of Colorado – Denver

· University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business

· Vanderbilt University Owen School of Business

This was the second year the ten schools came together for a case competition. This year Duke’s Fuqua School of Business was the hosting school.

The corporate sponsor for the case was Takeda Pharmaceuticals, and the topic was Alzheimer’s disease and brain health. We were given ten days to design a launch strategy for a novel biomarker assay for the risk assessment of Alzheimer’s disease, paired with a preventative drug therapy, which is about to enter Phase III trials. We spent considerable time assessing the strategic and competitive landscape, pricing issues, current patient and disease management, reimbursement and the role of insurance organizations, and put together all our recommendations on how to successfully deliver this risk assessment and drug therapy to market. Our strategy involved building physician relationships, particularly with primary care physicians and neurologists, using direct-to-consumer marketing and providing patient and caregiver education. We also did extensive analysis to forecast results of the launch.

Our team had to present late in the day, but we felt very good about it. We gave a twenty minute presentation followed by fifteen minutes of questions. The judges asked insightful questions and seemed genuinely interested in our ideas. At the awards reception, we were recognized as the third place winners. Wharton got first place and Duke got second place. We were very excited and proud to return to BU, having placed in the 2011 BAHM Case Competition. We look forward to BU doing even better next year!

Katy Perkins is a 2nd year MS-MBA studying Information Systems and Health Sector Management. She is the President of the Health Services Management Association and is interested in a career in process improvement in healthcare delivery.