Entrepreneurship in BME

Learning Objective:

Students will be able to ideate, create a plan, commercialize research products and ideas, and be able to study the market. The final business plan will be a summary of these topics, and will include: customer discovery, teaming, financial planning, and how to prepare business presentations.

Description:

This course teaches the foundation of entrepreneurship in engineering in general and in particular in the biomedical field. The course is designed to create a successful path from an idea, or from a research product, and transform it into a product that can be marketed and sold to customers. The course will engage students on the motivations and goals of starting a business, on the path from idea, prototype and business plan. It will explore how to find customers and how to interview customer or identifying customer problems to solve and product fit. The course will provide a general initial business training and then delve into minimum product definition and development of a business plan. The course will also explore financial models and cost-planning, including revenue models. The course will focus on biomedical applications by helping define clinical utility and advantage, introduce clinical trials, regulations, reimbursement processes, and clinical sales. We will also review ethical issues involved in starting a business and examples of what to do and not to do.

We also provide examples of successful startups, in areas as: applied machine learning, biomedical imaging, biomedical instrumentation, software for medical and biomedical applications -- to name a few.

Lectures will include an overview of the state-of-the-art entrepreneurial process, new opportunities and ideas for innovation and commercial success.

Fall 2025 Syllabus 

Prerequisites:

Basic knowledge of biology, biomedical engineering and engineering process is useful but not required. No previous knowledge in business, startups or commercialization is required. You can ask permission of the instructor if you have taken a similar course elsewhere or wish to be advised.

Web Address:

https://purdue.brightspace.com

Homework:

The weekly homework will be a portion of the business plan, presentation, interviews, and background material. 

Please note that no late assignments will be accepted (less extenuating circumstances discussed in advance with the teaching crew).

Projects:

The final project will consist on the design of a business and plan for a startup based on students ideas. We use project in this course because it is the best way to stimulate class discussions and also problem-solving abilities, and to understand the theoretical concepts. Projects will require the use of a laptop and some basic computing devices. the project can be collaborative within a group (groups of 2-4 students), but a final report is required for each individual student. Projects are the final component of this course and require significant amount of time (~6 weeks or more) and also reflect in a large portion of the grade (see: Evaluation). We will devote multiple lectures to help students choose the projects and feedback choices to the whole class. Also, we will have at least one mid-project review to monitor progress.