Pete has over 30 years of health care operating and venture capital experience. In addition to co-founding Thomas, McNerney & Partners, Pete co-founded Coral Ventures in 1992, where he was responsible for health care investing. Pete has served on the board of a number of the Coral Ventures' and Thomas, McNerney and Partners' portfolio companies. Prior to joining Coral in 1992, Pete was a co-founder and Managing Partner of The Kensington Group, a firm specializing in providing management services to early stage companies in the health care field. In 1986, he founded and was Chief Executive Officer of Memtec North America, a company established to commercialize cross flow membrane microfiltration technology in North America. Previously, Pete spent 11 years with Baxter Healthcare Corporation, where he held various general management positions in the U.S., Europe, Middle East and Southeast Asia. He has served as President of the Minnesota Venture Capital Association and is on the Board of Trustees of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota. A Certified Public Accountant, Pete received a B.A. from Yale and an M.B.A. from Stanford University. Pete was a 2014 fellow at Harvard's Advanced Leadership Initiative program.
The first five weeks will be focused on forging and each team will be paired with a company that has successfully navigated the early-stage challenges facing health care companies. The teams will be asked to investigate the actions taken by the company to place them in a successful position and asked to present their findings to the remainder of the class. The second five weeks will be focused on funding during which the course will explore the key drivers and trends in early-stage financing and venture capital. Guest speakers will include experienced venture investors and CEOs of early-stage companies raising capital. Teams will be asked to evaluate early-stage investment opportunities and make an investment recommendation.
**HCAK-615 can be a one-quarter course but is designed ideally as a two-quarter sequence in conjunction with HCAK-616**
NUvention Medical is designed as a two-term course to provide students with real-world experience as an innovator and entrepreneur in the rapidly evolving fields of health care devices and heath technology. Taught by a team of experienced healthcare entrepreneurs, innovators, and medical practitioners, the overall course goal is to develop an in-depth business plan, investor presentation, and viable product prototype for a new medical startup firm. To navigate the complex healthcare landscape, students form cross-disciplinary teams (including at least one student from Kellogg, Feinberg, McCormick, and Pritzker) to conceive of and identify an innovative new healthcare product and work to evaluate the opportunity with support from leading industry guest lecturers and direct mentoring from experience faculty advisors. In the fall term, COVID-permitting, student teams will shadow healthcare practitioners in the hospital to explore unmet market needs, work to understand important market opportunities from a risk-based perspective, use design thinking principles to conceive of an innovative product with a convincing value proposition, and explore many of the challenges facing health care including the regulatory and reimbursement environment. Teams then pitch their initial idea to active healthcare investors. In the winter term, the teams will work in depth to validate their customer and stakeholder assumptions, explore different revenue models, clearly understand the regulatory and reimbursement challenges and opportunities, define sales and distribution channels, and identify sources of capital. Each team is required to develop a full investor presentation backed up by a business plan and a viable prototype. Both the fall pitch and final winter investor presentation will be made to a group of experienced health care executives and investors. After the fall term, students will be given the choice of whether or not to continue into the winter term, and the faculty will decide which ideas are eligible to advance based on their business potential. All students with acceptable attendance and level of effort in the fall term will be permitted to continue whether their pitch idea advances or not, possibly necessitating some team modifications. Readings include text, industry articles and a few cases. Classes are held at the Law School (primarily fall), KGH (primarily winter), and the Ford design center. A number of classes will have healthcare industry leaders as guest speakers. Students are evaluated on the basis of both team and individual assignments with team assignments more heavily weighted. Grades will be awarded for each term separately. Permission from the student's school faculty representative is required to register. Students must complete the fall (I) quarter (HCAK 615) in order to be eligible for the winter (II) quarter (HCAK 616), and will earn 1.0 credit for each term completed. Students in the 2 Year Full Time program and the Evening & Weekend program must have completed one full year. Students in the 1 Year program need to have completed the summer quarter.
