MIT's Biomedical Enterprise Program

For those looking for a biotech-oriented MBA, there are a lot of great options out there. A large percentage of the top business schools offer some sort of biotechnology concentration. In the top 10, I know Duke especially has a highly respected healthcare program.

MIT has a program with a different approach. Their Biomedical Enterprise Program is a three year program that combines a Sloan MBA with a master's in health sciences technology from the HST program (a joint MIT-Harvard endeavor). The classwork looks interesting, covering FDA trials, business law, epidemiology and pathology, with electives in cell bio, pharmacology, etc. To me, this is all fascinating stuff, but I'm a biology nerd.

The big question is, how much will all this help a job applicant, versus having an MBA alone? This is a program that takes an extra year, thus costs an extra year of lost salary and some extra tuition. Will it leave one stranded in the no man's land between legit PhD scientist and a know-nothing-about-science MBA? Will a basic scientific knowledge really help an MBA in most jobs?

I've been asking around, and the answers are mixed, as I expected. Some careers might be well suited to the program -- contract research and consulting companies were suggested as examples. The pharmaceutical industry was proposed as a place where this program would not be as useful. I'll be collecting more opinions as time goes on. And it's hard to discount the contacts that a program like this is likely to create.

The program is small and the information about it scarce. It's only for a very specific group of people. I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps I'm part of that group.