I started the Pharma MBA at Goethe Business School in 2024. Now that I have completed the program several months ago, I see a chance to reflect on the experience. I applied for the program because I wanted to look at our industry from beyond my own desk, together with peers who work in it every day. With that, I also applied for the Thought Leader Scholarship because I believe our industry could do with a breath of fresh air, not least when it comes to the modernization of our health systems, of which the pharmaceutical industry is an integral part! Goethe Business School awarded me the scholarship, and today I would like to express my thanks and to return the favor by supporting peers. Hence, I invite you to read on if you are interested in my perspective. 

No one had to be there

Let me start with the photo at the top of this article. It was taken on a Saturday morning in Frankfurt in the rain, and no one in the photograph had to be there. Each of us had a job to go to on Monday and, in our working group, actually a family with mostly little children at home, some of the children being so young that they came along and were fed outside the lecture hall. That was our routine every other weekend. The sun is now out, and for me the Pharma MBA has been over for several months. Yet, when I look back, it is not the qualification that remains with me, but the two years it took to achieve it. It is not the certificate, but the Friday late afternoons and evenings and the Saturdays spent with those people studying NPV models and pharma business cases. What I remember are the discussions, the group work, and the fact that all of us kept coming back for two years, although none of us had to. 

The room was the curriculum

I did not sign up for the sake of another degree. I already had a doctorate, and I wasn't the only person in the room who did; in our cohort, many had a science background. What struck me during those weekends was who came together: a truly global cohort, most of us traveling in from across Germany and Europe, all from the pharmaceutical industry, all from different functions, and almost all senior or on the path to a quite senior position. This was exactly what I had in mind: reflecting on our industry with people who are involved in it every day, in other international companies, other markets and other parts of the pharma value chain. And the program is designed for it: part-time, Friday afternoons and Saturdays on campus, case studies and group work in the evenings, the regular day job continuing as usual. The courses include general business topics, from strategy and finance to leadership, and then cover the pharmaceutical value chain from Research and Development and Regulatory Affairs through Marketing, Medical and Sales, and Health Policy and Market Access. I gained as much from my study group and classmates as I did from the lecturers. Every case was discussed from several functions and markets at once, by people who deal with exactly these questions in their day jobs.

Life can accommodate more 

The other thing I have learned over the past two years is that life can accommodate more than we think: work, family, and ongoing learning can all be experienced to the full. But you need to get organized! The greatest thank-you goes to my wife. During my two years in a professional MBA program, she served as a judge at a national court in Karlsruhe, having been seconded there. We have three children; I worked full time in a challenging role during the week and was away every other weekend for two years. Together we managed all that. Actually, too often she managed all that, and I know it! My recommendation is to speak through the details of how you want to organize your MBA, given all other commitments. And then, just start if there is a window of opportunity and support.  

What my final thesis was about

Finally, I want to mention the thesis: what a chance to think – a decade or more after your first studies – deeply about a topic you really care about, and to approach it with the rigor of scientific research. From my cohort, I know engineers who studied how psychological safety affects team performance, and Medical Affairs professionals who empirically examined the savings potential of new AI processes. For me, it turned a question from my everyday work into a research question: what is the value of Public & Government Affairs for pharmaceutical companies, and how can it be managed as a strategic capability? 

My thesis on the “Value of Public & Government Affairs for Pharmaceutical Companies” builds on the concept of integrated market and non-market strategy developed by the Stanford economist David P. Baron and follows a mixed-methods design. On the quantitative side, I analyzed ten years of European Transparency Register data, from 2016 to 2025, to trace how the pharmaceutical industry engages with EU policymaking over time. On the qualitative side, a case study on the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive shows how a non-market issue can develop over many years before it becomes a multi-billion-euro cost exposure for the industry. Taken together, the findings look at the function in both directions: outward, where it engages with societal and political stakeholders, and inward, where it translates what is happening out there into terms the company can act on, from cost exposure to the license to operate and revenue enablement. The value lies in connecting the two, and in building, using, and measuring that strategic capability, from anticipating issues early to the right operating model and KPIs. 

Stanford economist David P. Baron put the underlying point in one sentence three decades ago, and I placed it on the very first page of the thesis: “Since performance in the nonmarket environment is the responsibility of managers and not just of corporate affairs, legal, and government relations specialists, managers are also responsible for the integration of market and nonmarket strategies and the analysis that underpins them.” If you too are working on similar questions, I would like to exchange ideas with you.

Thought leadership is action

That leads me once more to the scholarship. Receiving a scholarship of this kind is a step forward, and in my view thought leadership is not a title so much as a responsibility toward the industry in which we operate and the people with whom we work. I'll be helping Goethe Business School advise on and select the next Thought Leader Scholars, and I'm happy to speak with anyone considering joining the program and looking for a frank explanation of what is required. Please just get in touch. I am not always easy to reach, but we will manage, and I am always happy to talk to smart peers from our industry.