The Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) degree program from Cornell’s Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management received a record-breaking number of applicants for its second year and recently welcomed 69 students to campus for a weeklong residency in Ithaca, New York.
Medical innovation is reaching new heights every year. What scientific breakthroughs can we expect on the market in the coming decade? What challenges will we face in adopting them?
Professor Sean Nicholson, director of the Cornell Sloan Program in Health Administration, welcomed Wyatt Gotbetter, SVP and worldwide head of Parexel Access Consulting, and Dr. Gregory B. Franz, MD, MPH, MHA, hematologist and medical oncologist at the Kirkland Cancer Center, to explore answers to these questions in the recent Keynote webcast “Bringing New Science to Market: Innovation, Adoption, and Health Policy Challenges.”
Biotech and pharmaceutical firms spend about $80 billion each year on research and development in order to try to bring new therapies to the market. What is in the pipeline that might have a big positive effect on the health of the population in the future?
Gotbetter: “If we think just about the past five years, and of course that includes the pandemic, I think the rate of innovation and the number of launches has been remarkable. We can’t have this discussion without acknowledging the validation and the importance to all of us of the RNAi vaccines from BioNTech and Moderna. Moderna, on the heels of that success and being flush with sales of their COVID vaccine, is really advancing a number of therapeutic products as well as vaccines – really advancing their RNAi technology into the therapeutic space and oncology specifically.
In the same time, we’ve seen the approval of a couple of CAR-Ts truly advancing life-saving therapy in hematology and oncology. I think we’ll see gene therapies becoming safer and easier to manufacture, hopefully at lower costs. There’s just a pipeline of literally hundreds of programs where we’ll see gene therapy go from rare disease and disease that has very, very high morbidity perhaps into things managed more chronically with small molecule drugs – like heart failure.”
We have a couple of CAR-T therapies on the market that are Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved. Are there similar kinds of classes of compounds that have yet to be approved that you think might potentially have a similar health impact?
Franz: “Leveraging the immune system to identify and kill cancer cells – that’s really what’s going on here. This is T cells doing what T cells do against cancer cells. I know that’s a very simple explanation. It’s very difficult to develop these compounds and to do this safely, but I think that’s where the money and the future is.”
It takes a long time, and it’s very expensive for biotech and pharmaceutical firms to run clinical trials and, even preceding that, to identify compounds that are promising enough to start a clinical trial. The current estimate is about $2.6 billion in investment across a portfolio of compounds in order to statistically assure a company that they’re going to have one approved compound. Where do companies come up with that money, and in the current climate, is it difficult for companies to raise the funds they need in order to invest in those drugs?
Gotbetter: “That $2.6 billion figure also includes the cost of failure. Even if we think about a successful drug compound, if you boil down the numbers, hundreds and hundreds of drug candidates will be considered before you start your phase one and then roughly one in ten of those will make it through to approval. It’s fraught with risk. But even if you could streamline that process, you’re probably looking at hundreds of millions to a billion dollars.
The amount of money that’s poured into the biotech sector over the past few years has been remarkable. We’ve seen, though, a massive sea change in the past year. Biotech has been the engine of discovery and innovation for large pharmaceutical companies. The largest companies in the world that certainly have formidable R&D engines employing thousands of people still turn to biotech to find innovation, to find a compound that has been tested, that shows a proof of concept, and can move forward.
The headwinds of the past year or two – interest rates and some of the perceived threats of the Inflation Reduction Act, which could reduce pricing power of the industry – has really slowed down [venture capital] funding.
I think what that means is that probably the rate of innovation will slow down a little bit in the sense that there may be fewer programs being pursued simultaneously, so a company may really focus on the crown jewels instead of many at once. Then biotech may again have to be more reliant on Big Pharma once they’re in the middle of their development versus a period where they probably could see funding to go all the way through.”
What are the factors that make a drug widely adopted?
Franz: “In the medical oncology world, it’s really all about safety and efficacy. Is the drug difficult to give? Does the patient have a lot of adverse side effects? How do you manage those side effects? But most importantly, you’re looking at endpoints: PFS, or progression-free survival, and OS, or overall survival. Duration of response and response rate are biggies and, of course, the toxicity profile. All those together are important. The better the PFS and OS, the more successful the drug is going to be.”
Are biotech and pharmaceutical firms doing anything to try to run their trials differently – to be less expensive, to be shorter, to have higher probability of approval?
Gotbetter: “The FDA provides a rubric that says for very life-threatening diseases, it will work with the industry sponsor to find a way to streamline the therapy. We have names for that in the U.S like breakthrough therapies and accelerated pathways, where you get more support and guidance from the regulatory agency, but you’re also partnering with them along the way to find a way to expedite the study.
There’s a lot of companies that are using all sorts of AI, computational methods and synthetic biology to [speed up the trial process].”
Historically, clinical trials have been dominated by white men. Are biotech and pharmaceutical firms trying to diversify those trials? What are the implications potentially of a more representative group of patients in the testing phase?
Gotbetter: “There are mandates coming from the FDA and other governments, and I think very sincere efforts from the pharma industry and from clinical research organizations who enroll and operationalize the studies to really bring diversity into studies. There’s an awareness in society for many reasons, for many historical wrongs, we need to bring more diversity into everything we do. It’s to really ensure that when we study a drug, we’ll be able to show efficacy in different populations because we’re not all the same. Historically, if you were to develop a drug for people of European descent, across the globe in Asian markets, they would want to know that there was a study being done in populations for which the results were meaningful for them. As we take that to other populations, to different age groups, different genders, it’s the right thing to do.”
This post has been edited for length and clarity.
Want to learn more about the future of biopharma? Register for Cornell’s Biotech and Pharmaceutical Management Immersion Program and watch the full Keynote “Bringing New Science to Market” webcast online.
As the demand for product managers and tech executives continues to grow, Cornell Tech has purposefully designed a flagship Product and Tech Executive Leadership Program in collaboration with eCornell, offering professionals a unique opportunity to enhance their leadership skills and take their tech innovation strategies to the next level. The program aims to equip participants with the necessary expertise to navigate the rapidly evolving digital landscape.
Designed for mid and senior-level product managers, engineering leaders and technology professionals with experience leading teams, the three-day immersive program will take place Sept. 19 to 21, 2023, at Cornell Tech in New York, NY.
As biotechnology and pharmaceutical professionals continue efforts to make advances in medicinal drug formulation, safety and efficacy, experts in the field are implementing innovations to address regulatory hurdles, research costs and global health challenges.
The new Biotech and Pharmaceutical Management Program offered through the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy is designed to give leaders the opportunity to explore industry trends and cutting edge research with a cohort of peers, executives and renowned faculty from the university.
A new pre-college certificate program designed to help high school students develop data analysis skills complementary to a wide range of academic and professional fields will be offered at no cost to the children of Cornell faculty and staff and underserved students nominated by local high schools and other partners.
“Big Data for Big Policy Problems,” offered by eCornell in collaboration with Cornell’s Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy and the School of Continuing Education, is a rigorous, non-credit version of the course offered to Cornell students.
The Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy Executive Master of Health Administration (EMHA) is one of the top 10 executive health care management graduate programs in the nation, according to rankings published by Modern Healthcare Magazine.
Of 25 programs, the Cornell Brooks EMHA ranked No. 9 based on alumni survey data from the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education (CAHME). The commission calculated each institution’s Net Promoter Score, which measures the likelihood that graduates would positively recommend a program. CAHME published the average scores for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 academic years and Cornell’s EMHA received a score demonstrating high satisfaction – 81 out of 100.
Read the full story on the Cornell Chronicle website.
We increasingly place our trust in algorithms, whether applying for a mortgage, a new job; or making personal health decisions. But what about the security system that uses facial recognition and locks out a 55-year-old office custodian from her night shift? Or the groups of people automatically cropped out of photos on social media? These are the unintended, and often unfair, consequences of data science tools amplified across millions of users. They’re also highly preventable.
This is the lesson that lawyer and epidemiologist M. Elizabeth Karns embeds in every data science and statistics course she teaches in the Department of Statistics and Data Science. Her students will be deciding how to use data in the future, and while bad decision-making in business isn’t new, Karns says it’s the accelerated and aggregated effect of today’s data science applications that’s so dangerous: individual, team or even a whole company’s worth of decisions, can instantly affect the lives of millions of people. Moreover, the torrent of new technologies is moving faster than our regulatory systems, leaving a gap in accountability. Even data scientists themselves often don’t know exactly what’s happening inside their algorithms.
Read the full story on the Cornell Chronicle website.
Alex Colvin PhD ’99, Kenneth F. Kahn ’69 Dean of the ILR School, hosted “Supply Chain in Chaos” on April 14. Dean Colvin interviewed two manufacturing leaders with decades of experience working to source, produce, and deliver apparel to clients around the world.
Read the full story here.
Cornell Johnson College of Business is the latest US business school to launch a Master in Business Analytics (MSBA) program.
Cornell follows other top US schools like MIT Sloan School of Management and UCLA Anderson School of Business, who offer top-ranked MSBAs.
The STEM-designated program will be taught part-time over 16-months and will be predominantly online.
Cornell Johnson MSBA: The curriculum
Demand for data analytics skills is growing. According to the GMAC Corporate Recruiters Survey, 37% of recruiters hired MSBA grads in 2018, compared with a projected figure of 62% in 2021.
This increase means MSBA grads are likely to be able to land roles across a wide range of industries, with the vast majority of companies implementing data into their business models.
“The need for data analytics in organizations and society is increasing rapidly,” says Vishal Gaur (pictured), program director for the new MSBA. “We have been working towards this program for the last two years, meeting with alumni and recruiters to assess the requirements from business analytics professionals.”
Cornell’s new MSBA looks to capitalize on this trend, offering students the chance to develop their analytics skills and knowledge of analytical tools.
The program is scheduled to begin in May 2022, and will run until August 2023. It will be delivered through Cornell’s award-winning online learning platform eCornell.
Teaching will be delivered asynchronously, giving students the flexibility to view online sessions at a time that suits them. But there will be some in-person requirements; Cornell’s MSBA curriculum includes two week-long residency sessions in the summers of 2022 and 2023. These will be held in Ithaca and New York City.
The program is also designed to encourage students to work together, Vishal says.
“It will be run like a residential Johnson program with small cohorts, extensive interaction with faculty and fellow students, and co-curricular activities that allow students to expand their knowledge and network outside of the classroom,” he explains.
The curriculum covers core business elements along with soft skills such as communication and teamwork. This is combined with a focus on analytics skills; students will learn to use tools like Python, SQL, and Tableau to gather, analyze, and visualize data.
Industry-focused specializations
Along with the flexible teaching delivery, the curriculum also features six elective modules covering topics like Machine Learning for Investment and Customer Analytics and Strategy.
During a specialization period, students can choose from one of four different concentrations. These include Marketing Analytics, Finance Analytics, Operations and Supply Chain Analytics, and Business Analytics.
Each specialization is designed for students aiming to launch careers in their chosen field, and so covers a range of analytics functions within that industry. The Finance Analytics specialization, for example, includes teaching on subjects including corporate finance, fintech, and lending and credit analytics.
The program also requires students to work together in teams on a variety of projects. During the program each student will work on a Capstone Project where they will seek to solve a real-world issue using a large data set and analytics tools. They’ll present their findings to MSBA faculty members.
Applications for the Cornell MSBA are now open. If you’d like to enroll in this cutting-edge program, Cornell estimates tuition will amount to around $78,000.
BY LINDA COPMAN
As of July 11, 2021, more than 89 percent of Cornell’s Ithaca, Geneva, and Cornell Tech campus populations is vaccinated, including more than 10,100 faculty and staff. Only a single case of COVID-19 infection was identified via surveillance testing in the month of June—an encouraging sign as the university looks forward to resuming operations in the fall.
The pandemic reminded us that, in an instant, anything can change. The exact timing differed for each of us, but we can all remember the moment in 2020 when we felt the world shift. Many in-person classes and jobs transitioned to remote status, as we sought to limit the spread of the virus by staying home. Everything from spring break plans to the Summer Olympics was cancelled or postponed. As career and personal plans were put on hold, our sense of control over the future wavered.
Eighteen months later, as many of us plan for a return to in-person work, Cornell has offered its employees a wealth of resources to help with this next big transition. On June 24 and 25, the university hosted a webinar called “Managing the Anxiety of Returning to Onsite Work.” Dr. Gabriel Tornusciolo, assistant director of the Cornell Faculty and Staff Assistance Program (FSAP), shared strategies and tips for coping with anxiety around returning to the workplace.
Whether or not you’re experiencing anxiety about returning to the office, I highly recommend taking an hour to watch. This gave me deeper, valuable insights into the diversity of concerns and sparked some reflection on my own situation. I hope you find it useful too.—Chris Kelly, graphic designer at Cornell
On June 24, eCornell hosted Transforming Our Lives Through COVID-19’s Lessons, a keynote focusing on the larger societal shifts which occurred as a result of the pandemic. Four thought leaders from the Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures (CIHF) highlighted some of the lessons we’ve learned and how these lessons might inform the future. The speakers shared key takeaways from their research on how the pandemic has changed the way we think about work, health, equity, and working and living spaces.
As you envision your own return to in-person life, we hope you find value in these tips and insights from Cornell experts.
Dr. Gabriel Tornusciolo began his talk by reminding the audience about the fears many of us had at the start of the pandemic: Would our families be safe? Would we have enough PPE? Would we lose our jobs? Gabriel pointed out that concerns about our survival and security are near the base of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Only when these basic needs are met can we move on to addressing needs around self-fulfillment, such as making a career pivot or finding new opportunities for self-growth.
Gabriel asked viewers to think about the big challenges they faced in March 2020 and compare them to the current challenges of returning to work. “If you think about your safety then and now and the demands on you then and now, which is more challenging,” he asked, “leaving or coming back?”
People may want to avoid the workplace, but avoidance over time increases anxiety.—Gabriel Tornusciolo, assistant director of the Cornell Faculty and Staff Assistance Program
Gabriel explained that over the past year and a half, many of us have become accustomed to working from home, and that has become our new normal. “The office is a place that was once ordinary but is now challenging,” he said. “We’re being asked to change again. People may want to avoid the workplace, but avoidance over time increases anxiety,” he added.
To counter our tendency to avoid risk (and the workplace), Gabriel suggested a technique known as habituation, or prolonged exposure to that which makes us anxious. “It’s better to start off and decide not to avoid,” he said.
Gabriel shared five strategies to help employees manage their anxiety and ease back into in-person work. The five steps are:
Gabriel said it sometimes take a bit of digging to figure out what the underlying issue is. Possibilities include fear of losing your job, fears for your safety, fears around loss of freedom, or fears around the meaningfulness of your work. “As you worked from home, you had to consider your values,” he said. “What do you truly want from life? I suggest that you ponder this a bit,” he suggested.
This includes your work hours, the layout of the physical space, measures to ensure worker safety, and employer policies about medical leaves and working from home. Gabriel encouraged viewers to access reliable information to help manage your anxiety, from sources like employer websites and supervisors. Gabriel suggested that employees write an email to their supervisors to share their concerns and potential solutions. He advised employees to “be prepared with concrete suggestions,” and supervisors to “create real two-way communication,” involving candid conversations and active listening.
Gabriel encouraged viewers to be like Spock on Star Trek, and “lean into your curious, cognitive, intellectual side as you examine whether there’s any proof to back up your fear.” He suggested making a plan that includes exposure to the various components of a typical workday. “Begin to experience your onsite workday now,” he said. “Take the bus or drive to the parking lot, dress in work attire, visit the office to see the space. Identify points of anxiety and you may come up with some simple solutions,” he added. For example, if you’re worried about making lunch without having access to your home kitchen, Gabriel suggested thinking through how to bring foods you enjoy to work.
Gabriel shared several positive outcomes associated with returning to onsite workplaces. These include easier communication and collaboration among team members, more positive social interactions, an increase in alone time (time away from family), and a reduction in work hours. “About 70 percent of remote workers work on weekends,” Gabriel said, and 45 percent of them work more hours. “It’s clear we’re working more hours, and in the long-term that can be negative,” he added. In a 2021 report, Microsoft found that time devoted to meetings each week has more than doubled for Teams users since February 2020, and 41% of the entire global workforce could be considering handing in their resignation.
Gabriel also recommended that everyone incorporate what he called “healthy distractors,” such as a favorite Netflix show, talking with friends, and exercise into each day. “It’s really important to exercise,” Gabriel said. “It blunts your stress response. If you can work out in the morning, you have a better chance of managing your anxiety throughout the day.” He also suggested trying one of the many meditation and relaxation apps, and, last but not least, he reminded everyone to “show kindness to one another, and we’ll get through this much better.”
Late in 2020, a few faculty members at the Cornell Institute for Healthy Futures began reflecting on life in the aftermath of the pandemic. Working independently, each of them recognized that the difficult realities of COVID-19 and social justice issues in the U.S. have deeply impacted us as individuals, as families, as communities, and as workers. These experts examined their own sectors and began writing about emerging trends. As they shared their notes with CIHF colleagues and board members, they saw broad areas of overlap.
“We were doing exactly what we founded the institute to do,” said Mardelle Shepley, executive director of CIHF and Janet and Gordon Lankton Professor in the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis in the College of Human Ecology (CHE), “(which is) using these disciplines simultaneously to solve big problems in the world.” The CIHF faculty joined forces to draft two papers summarizing their findings, which they hope to publish soon. Here are a few takeaways from their research.
Mardelle Shepley’s research focuses on the impact of the physical environment in healthcare, hospitality, and senior living settings. Mardelle said that the pandemic quickly highlighted shortcomings within healthcare settings, like the need to increase space available for storage of PPE and delivery of vaccines, and to increase access to outdoor areas for both testing and destressing.
“The concern is that we’ve become so tech focused, we’re losing our humanity,” she said. One way to counter this is “giving people the opportunity to interact with or view nature, by stepping outside for 15 minutes,” she explained.
We were doing exactly what we founded the institute to do, (which is) using these disciplines simultaneously to solve big problems in the world.—Mardelle Shepley, executive director of CIHF
Emerging needs in hospitality settings include how to incorporate robots, better accomplish cleaning, provide safe wellness opportunities, find alternative uses for hotel spaces, isolate family members as needed, and provide contactless food services.
Mardelle said that senior living facilities are “the ultimate platform for bringing hospitality and healthcare together.” She cited the need to reimagine these spaces in the post-pandemic era to provide visiting rooms that allow families to maintain relationships without endangering one another, common spaces that reduce clustering among residents, and circulation routes that reduce the number of people passing back and forth.
She advocated for integrating end users into the design process so that the facility reflects their perspectives and needs. “We need to get the right information to begin with, to make sure we do it right in the end,” she said.
Nicolas Ziebarth, associate professor of Policy Analysis and Management in CHE, is a labor economist and leading expert on paid sick leave. Nicolas said that many employers don’t offer this benefit, but he anticipates that in the aftermath of the pandemic, “employees will demand this to care for their children. Other countries are doing this,” he added, “and the U.S. needs to, too.”
He noted that people who are not satisfied with their workplace flexibility and fringe benefits are now more likely to quit. “They have the bargaining power to ensure they are happy at work,” he said. Nicolas also forecasts that we will travel less and do more from home. “It’s cheaper, environmentally friendly, and convenient,” he said. He views this moment as a great opportunity to increase equity and improve everyday working conditions.
Nicolas pointed out that virus variants will continue to emerge, and that “COVID-19 will not go away.” He noted that we have learned a lot about how diseases spread, and he believes that this knowledge will result in more interventions to stop the spread. Nicolas predicts lasting changes in workplaces, including growing unwillingness to allow employees to come to work sick.
“There will be a change of behaviors and norms that will require more distancing in labor and healthcare, and more mask wearing,” he said. He also said that “the time is ripe for productive discussions around vaccine hesitancy,” among employers, employees, and clients, as they try to find solutions together. “The pandemic proved that telemedicine works,” he added, and he thinks that, moving forward, a significant share of medical appointments will be done via telemedicine.
Heather Kolakowski ’00 is an alumna and lecturer in Food and Beverage Management at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration. During the pandemic, Heather turned her expertise in the food and beverage sector to focus on increasing access to healthy food. “Many families need support,” she said, citing data showing that one in eight Americans accessed SNAP benefits in February 2021. “I anticipate levels will stay high,” she said.
“What can we do policy wise?” she asked. She noted that the federal government extended free school lunches through this summer, and that conversations are ongoing about making school lunches free year-round. She also noted the rise of mutual aid societies, where neighbors help neighbors by stocking food cabinets in their communities.
To pay workers a fair wage and offer better benefits to the humans who work for and with us, there is a cost involved.—Heather Kolakowski ’00, lecturer in Food and Beverage Management at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration
Due to concerns about personal safety, low wages, and long hours, Heather said that many food industry workers are reluctant to return and are instead choosing other types of work. “To pay workers a fair wage and offer better benefits to the humans who work for and with us, there is a cost involved,” she said. “This is an opportunity to disrupt the industry and make changes, like abolishing tipping and creating a fair wage across the board,” she added.
Heather sees potential for the ex-offender population to transition into the hospitality sector. “We need to give populations that have significant barriers to employment the tools they need, and create pipelines for individuals who want to change their lives. It’s kind of like dating,” she explained. “What are the unspoken rules of engaging with mainstream employers? You need to get to know their expectations. In the past, organizations didn’t want to invest the time in this transition process,” she said, “but now we have to.”
Brooke Hollis MBA ’78 is co-founder and executive director emeritus of CIHF and has worked in both the public and private sectors, serving in senior management positions in health and financial advisory consulting. Brooke moderated the panel and called attention to the new Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, which will investigate many of the issues discussed in the keynote. He noted that Cornell students have access to the data produced by the institute’s multidisciplinary experts and invited viewers to keep abreast of the latest CIFH news on Twitter (@Cornell_ihf).
Michelle Artibee, director of workforce wellbeing at Cornell, says to expect that it will take time to adjust to working in-person. “The amount of time needed will vary,” she says. “Before returning to the routines of February 2020, consider the newer habits you’ve developed and what good things you will carry forward,” she suggests.
These two articles from Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM) provide some additional tips to support your physical and mental health during this time of transition.
Going back to working out—no matter how fit you were—should happen slowly, says Asad Siddiqi, DO, sports medicine physician and assistant professor of Clinical Rehabilitation Medicine at WCM.
You’re fully vaccinated, New York is reopening, and life is getting back to normal. Instead of joy, you feel overwhelmed, stressed, and can’t stop asking yourself: How should I behave around others? Get tips to manage your anxiety from Dr. Susan Evans, professor of Psychology in Clinical Psychiatry at WCM.