Business Development, 7.5 credits

A Bachelor's degree or a professional degree equivalent to a Swedish Bachelor's degree of at least 180 credits in health care, biomedicine, biology, cellular and molecular biology, pharmaceutics, chemistry, medicine or biotechnology. English language skills equivalent to English B at Swedish upper secondary school.

The overall goal is for the students to gain an understanding of the basics of business development in the life science industry.

Upon completion of the course, the student should be able to:

• identify situations where an organisation may need to initiate business development initiatives,
• apply basic methods of business intelligence and competitor analysis,
• analyse the processes that can lead to a deal,
• describe the essential elements for successful alliances between organisations.

Background to why business development as a concept emerged.
Methods for business intelligence and competitor analysis, including future trends and scenarios.
Processes for the transactions and alliances including assessment instruments, due diligence of projects and companies, valuation of projects and companies, negotiation, decision-making and contract design.
Factors influencing the outcome of partnerships (alliance management).
 

The course consists of lectures, seminars and assignmnets on group as well as individual levels.

The examination consists of a written report based on material from a case, an oral presentation of this report and two written exams: an analytical exam with essay questions and a written exam with short answer questions.The written report and the two written exams are graded Pass with distinction/Pass/Fail. The presentation is graded Pass/Fail.

In order to receive a final grade for the entire course, you need to get the grade "Pass" on all examninations. To get the grade "Pass with distinciton" on the entire course, you need to get the grade "Pass" on the presentation and the grade "Pass with distinction" on all other examinations.

Compulsary participation
Participation at seminars and presentations is compulsary. The course director assesses if and, in that case, how absence can be compensated. Before the student has participated in all compulsory parts or compensated absence in accordance with the course director's instructions, the student's results for respective part will not be registered in LADOK.
 

After each course there will be at least six opportunities to sit the examination within a two-years period.

The course language is English.

A course evaluation will be conducted according to guidelines decided by the Board of Higher Education.

Oral evaluation in the form of course council meetings will be carried out during the course.