Harvard Business School Case Studies Deepen Students’ Understanding

With decades of experience in the business side of the pharmaceutical sector, Cambridge Therapeutics’ Chairman John Klein works to offer consistently innovative, patient-centered products and packaging. Prior to his endeavors with Cambridge Therapeutics, he held senior executive roles with some of the world’s premier firms. John Klein received a Businessweek Corporate Turnaround of the Year Award for his work with Zenith Laboratories. His service as a Harvard Business School consultant resulted in three of the school’s famed case studies.

The HBS case-study method changes the way students, teachers, and practitioners think by offering them in-depth glimpses into the actual decision-making processes involved in corporate and organizational strategies. The case studies examine in detail the challenges faced by major organizations, putting a student into the role of a real executive faced with the same incomplete information, resource constraints, and time-management issues that arise in a real-world decision-maker’s life. As in the real world, a case study offers no simple or obvious solutions.

HBS bases its field cases on actual company situations, including “armchair” cases, derived from the lived experiences or scholarship of an instructor. “Library” cases draw on published works to create challenging scenarios.

Numerous HBS graduates have noted that the rigors of this method, and the case study work they have absorbed, have been high points in their education.

How a Canadian Pediatrician Revolutionized Prescription Safety

Cambridge Therapeutics Chairman John Klein and his team aim to provide physicians and their patients with high-quality, innovative, easy-to-manage prescription drug packaging that helps to increase patient compliance with any prescription drug regimen. A New Jersey-based company founded by John Klein in 2011, Cambridge Therapeutics puts the same level of care into ensuring that its packaging meets all applicable standards for child-resistance and safety.

Cambridge Therapeutics and its peers’ focus on ensuring safety and developing packaging that keeps prescription medications out of the hands of children has a history that extends back many decades.

In 1967, a Canadian physician, Dr. Henri Breault, patented his Palm-n-Turn prescription bottle lid. Dr. Breault began his work on the design after the tragic deaths of some 100 Canadian children every year due to accidental poisonings. As chief of pediatrics in a poison-control center at the Hotel Dieu Hospital, he had handled numerous cases in which he had to pump children’s stomachs to save their lives.

Dr. Breault’s lid is credited for a 25 percent lowering of the rate of accidental poisonings of children in the province of Ontario. Other Canadian provinces adopted it, and the United States established regulations in 1970 that required such child-resistant designs on some prescription medications. Worldwide adoption of the design led to some governments’ additional requirements that dangerous home products such as bleach also be packaged in child-resistant containers.

Dr. Breault died in 1983, but his impact on child safety has been compared to that of Jonas Salk on fighting polio.

Harvard Business School's New Venture Competition

As the chairman of Cambridge Therapeutics, John Klein leverages his extensive background in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries to guide the strategic direction of the company. Outside of his pursuits at Cambridge Therapeutics, John Klein has provided consulting services to Harvard Business School on strategic ways to improve competitiveness.

One program that Harvard Business School offers to students is its annual New Venture Competition. Featuring a $300,000 prize, the competition provides student teams with the opportunity to present a new idea for a business or a social enterprise. To compete in the business track, teams must include at least one current Harvard Business School MBA student to play a lead role in the business and serve as a major equity holder. 

For the social enterprise track, teams must consist primarily of Harvard University graduate students who hold meaningful roles in the proposed organization. For social enterprise entries, one team member must meet these qualifications: be a Harvard Business School MBA student, either a Center for Public Leadership fellow or Adrian Cheng fellow, or a Harvard graduate student taking certain courses. In addition to the student competitions, HBS alumni can enter regional New Venture Competitions with cash prizes of $100,000.

Novel Drug Delivery System May Boost Effectiveness of Cancer Treatment

An accomplished pharmaceutical executive based in Teaneck, New Jersey, John Klein is the chairman of Cambridge Therapeutics. In his capacity with Cambridge Therapeutics, he oversees the development of novel drug delivery systems and combination drug therapies. John Klein also keeps up with industry news related to areas such as novel drug delivery systems.

A new and exciting frontier in the field of pharmaceuticals, novel drug delivery systems aim to improve therapeutic efficacy and increase patients’ compliance with their prescribed regimens. New advancements in the field are happening at Virginia Tech, where faculty researchers have developed a novel drug delivery system with the potential to enhance cancer treatment options.

Current treatments that involve injecting nanoparticle drugs into patients have limited effectiveness because few of those nanoparticles reach the cancer site. On the other hand, through the new Nanoscale Bacteria-Enabled Autonomous Drug Delivery System (NanoBEADS), anti-cancer nanoparticle drugs are chemically attached to attenuated bacteria cells, which boosts the effectiveness of the treatment by allowing more of the therapeutic agents to reach the cancer site.

The Benefits of Physician Prescription Dispensing

Based in Teaneck, New Jersey, John Klein is the chairman of Cambridge Therapeutics, where he draws on his experience in the health care and pharmaceutical industries to guide the organization. Under John Klein’s direction, Cambridge Therapeutics focuses on providing innovative health care solutions, including novel drug delivery systems and physician prescription dispensing.

Physicians who opt to dispense from their own offices the medications that they prescribe can obtain a revenue boost. Given that the National Center for Health Statistics estimates that a typical physician writes approximately 35 prescriptions daily, adding a $10 handling surcharge on each one could result in up to $350 or more in additional daily revenue without using any additional physician time.

In addition to being more profitable for the physician’s practice and investors, physician-dispensed prescriptions offer increased convenience to patients because they can receive their medications at the point of care rather than waiting in line at the pharmacy. Prescriptions dispensed in a doctor’s office also may also help to increase adherence to medication regimens. Currently, as many as 31 percent of new prescriptions go unfilled by patients, according to the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

Hackensack Meridian Health’s Med School Partnership with Seton Hall

A pharmaceutical industry executive with extensive experience helming top companies such as Ivax and Zenith Laboratories, John Klein serves as chairman of Cambridge Therapeutics, based in Teaneck, New Jersey. In addition to his other professional and civic responsibilities, John Klein serves as a trustee of Hackensack Meridian Health Hospitals.

Early in 2018, Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine at Seton Hall University began accepting applications for positions in its inaugural class set to matriculate that summer. The school, a partnership between the health care system and Seton Hall, is New Jersey’s only private medical school. It was established in response to the dearth of physicians in New Jersey and the growing contemporary focus on individual wellness and community-centered care.

In addition to their organization’s work on the Seton Hall educational partnership, members of the Hackensack Meridian Health Board of Trustees have supported the establishment of a scholarship endowment fund of $100 million to aid medical students in need.

Hackensack Meridian Health Hospitals Named among Best in Region

As chairman of Cambridge Therapeutics, John Klein leverages 30 years of experience in generic drug development and distribution to help increase shareholder value. Beyond his role with Cambridge Therapeutics, John Klein is a trustee of Hackensack Meridian Health Hospitals.

In August 2018, four Hackensack Meridian Health hospitals earned a place on U.S. News & World Report's list of the top 10 hospitals in New Jersey. Hackensack University Medical Center was ranked as the second-best hospital in the state as well as the fifth-best in the New York Metro region. Moreover, it is ranked nationally in colon cancer surgery, hip replacement, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and heart failure, among other areas. 

Jersey Shore University Medical Center, Riverview Medical Center, and Raritan Bay Medical Center were ranked as the 4th, 8th, and 10th-best hospitals in the state, respectively. It was the first time in the top 10 for Raritan Bay, which was also recognized for its high-quality treatment and care of patients with heart failure. In compiling the statewide rankings and acknowledging areas of high performance, U.S. News considered patient experience, safety, and volume as well as quality of nursing care and risk-adjusted survival and readmission rates.