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IE Business School Offers MBA with Healthcare Expertise

A comprehensive healthcare offering includes a Concentration, Impact Projects and Business Labs.

One of the largest and fastest-growing sectors in the world, the global healthcare industry is projected to reach more than $10 trillion in revenue in 2022. Digitalization, vaccines, clinical trials and cutting edge advances open doors to the future.

With that in mind, IE Business School has crafted a comprehensive healthcare education for MBA candidates to select as to give them an edge in the sector that was radically disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. The International MBA and Tech MBA will now offer a Healthcare Concentration, in addition to health industry-focused Impact Projects, Business Labs and mentoring.

For the health concentration intake, International MBA and Tech MBA candidates complete three electives related to healthcare management, pharmaceutical industry and digitalization as well as technology or strategy based subjects.

José Esteves, Associate Dean for the International and Tech MBAs and Analytics Programs, said the healthcare concentration is an opportunity for students to increase their employability because they will have the digital skills to embrace the healthcare digital disruption.

“Over the last decade, we have witnessed a massive digital disruption that is transforming every aspect of the future of healthcare,” Esteves said.

“As the health sector's reliance on technology grows, there is a shortage of digitally skilled labor.”
José Esteves, Associate Dean for the International and Tech MBAs and Analytics Programs

The health concentration is one part of a comprehensive push to provide healthcare career development opportunities within the business school.

Students also participated in 6 to 8 weeks Impact Projects with companies from the health sector such as Novartis, Eli Lilly, GSK, Abbvie, GE Healthcare, Kern Pharma and XPLORO. The students then presented these projects as their Final Integrative Exercise.

Additionally, IE has set up a Business Impact Lab in collaboration with Johnson & Johnson, in which different student teams will address a real-life business problem the company faces.

Mauricio Campos Suarez, CEE Digital Lead of Novartis Pharma AG, who was an academic mentor during one of these projects highlighted the advantage working with companies gives students.

“This approach allows the students to work in a real-life project and to face real customer’s challenges to come up with pragmatic ideas. This experience can rapidly reduce the gap that sometimes exists between academic theory and the industry reality,” said Campos.

Renzo Cornejo participated in the first intake for the Healthcare concentration and applauded the program, teachers and electives offered.

“The pharma and healthcare specialization classes helped me to complement my experience in pharmaceutical marketing (Pfizer and Bristol Myers Squibb) with knowledge about market access and trends in the industry focused on marketing and digital,” Cornejo said.

Cornejo, who graduated from the IMBA in December 2021, completed an Impact Project focusing on digitalization and the adoption of new technologies, which he said was helpful for understanding how “digitalization is transforming the way health is managed worldwide.”

Carla Vazquez, who also graduated from the IMBA in December, pointed out that the concentration helped her feel better prepared for a job in the sector.

“Having this certificate has helped me to have a strong business background aligned with the needs and changes that need to happen in the healthcare field.”

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