Patagonia

I used to think that nothing would eclipse my Macchu Picchu trip in 2004 in terms of stunning scenery, but Patagonia might have done it. From March 4 - March 12, I traveled to Patagonia with 5 other first year classmates to hike the W trail (of the Paine circuit) in Torres del Paine, Chile. Pictured to your left is the famous Glacier Grey in Torres del Paine.

Patagonia is a large region in Southern Chile and Argentina, comprised of diverse landscape that includes deserts, mountains, lakes, rivers, and the like. There was a Wharton Leadership Venture to Tierra del Fuego (in Southern Patagonia) that I was interested in doing; however, I and the rest of my travel companions were wait-listed on this trip. Given the difficulty of getting off the wait-list, we decided to plan our own trip to Patagonia - just a different part of it. Torres del Paine is the most famous part of Patagonia and highly doable without a guide; so we decided to go there.

When I think of Patagonia, I think of windy, stark, and diverse landscape. It's not uncommon to be standing on a ledge in 50 mph winds, seeing clouds and rain off in one direction and blue sky and sun light in another, while looking up at a mountain and down at a lake with floating pieces of glaciers. And, because we're so far south, the sun doesn't set until 9pm. My travel companions felt the same - hiking in Patagonia, it's easy to feel like you're on another planet. Does Patagonia live up to the hype? Yes - take it from a man who has traveled to 30 countries - it does so with ease.

Over the next several blog entries I'll describe details of our adventure as we spent 2 days getting to Torres Del Paine, 5 days hiking the W trail, and 2 days getting back to the US. Looking back at my pictures, I shudder at the raw beauty of Patagonia.

In Praise of Angry Birds

It's official. I'm addicted to Angry Birds. What's Angry Birds, you ask? Only the best game on mobile phones. You launch a variety of birds into structures to kill evil, green pigs that have stolen your eggs. I've beaten the regular game and gotten 3 stars on all the levels. Now I'm close to beating Angry Birds: Seasons. Seasons is a great enhancement on the regular game. The levels are harder and require more strategy. The scenery and music are also better with Halloween, Christmas, Valentines, and St. Patrick's themes. Angry Birds is the perfect mobile app game - it's easy to play and you can play in easy 5 minute increments. And, who doesn't enjoy the thrill of hitting a structure just right and watching the whole thing come tumbling down on fat green pigs? I always knew I was a military genius - Angry Birds just proves it even more.

I love this game.

Q4 Begins (where did Q3 go)?

I certainly won't miss Q3, which was the busiest quarter I've had at Wharton. I hit the recruiting circuit hard, going through roughly 16 first round interviews and 6 2nd round interviews (all for health care companies). During one particularly rough week, I had interviews in NYC, San Jose, Atlanta, and Minneapolis. Unfortunately, academics (probably) suffered as a result of the recruiting onslaught. Fortunately though, I have a job that I think I'm going to enjoy for the summer.

Q4 has begun and I think it will be much better than Q3. However, academics will probably take the front seat again unless it is displaced by something. My courses for this quarter are:

Global Strategic Management
Marketing
Operations & Information Management: Supply and Demand
Health Care Entrepreneurship (we are in the semi-finals of the competition)
Health Care Field Application Project (we are consulting for NuPathe)

Not a light load by any means. But, besides academics, Q4 will be about fun. Spring is here and Philly is limping back to life. It's hard to believe that the 1st year is almost over, so it's time to get back on the social scene and party it's pre-term!

Avid Radiopharmaceuticals

Today's speaker in my Health Care Entrepreneurship class was none other than Dan Skovronsky, Founder and CEO of Avid Radiopharmaceuticals. I don't think we'll have a better speaker in the class.


Avid Radiopharmaceuticals is based on a molecule that Dan invented while doing his MD - PhD at Penn. This radioactive molecule, called florbetapir, is an amyloid imaging agent. When delivered to patients intravenously, the molecule passively diffuses through the blood-brain-barrier to light up amyloid plaques in the brain. These plaques often indicate the presence of Alzheimmer's disease. It turns out that Alzheimmer's is the #1 fear of the elderly, even more than heart disease or cancer.

Dan, who did not have any business training, founded Avid in 2004 and sold the company a few months ago to Lilly for $800M. Avid's acquisition by Lilly was one of the biggest successes in life sciences this year.

One of the most heart warming aspects of this fairy tale of entrepreneurship was the way in which the clinical trials were conducted. Avid recruited elderly patients near the end of their lives (these patients faced end-stage renal disease, cancer, etc.) for their initial testing. These patients knew they were dying and wanted to do something to help patients of Alzheimmers. They therefore agreed to donate their brains to Avid so that Avid's imaging agent could be tested on them. Avid used the brains of 1,000 patients for compound development and tested their compound on about 250 live patients in Phase III clinical trials. Avid later received the obituaries from the families of the patients who had donated their brains for the development trial.

There were two quotes that stuck out from this talk that I'll leave you with:

"Vision without execution is hallucination" - Thomas Edison
"Great companies position themselves to be bought, not to be sold" - Dan Skovronsky

Read below for the press release on the acquisition:
http://www.avidrp.com/press_releases/Avid%20Closing%20Press%20Release.pdf

Semester 2 Begins

My friends, it has been too long since I last wrote. Semester 1 at Wharton is in the books, and Semester 2 is well under way.

I spent the first week of my winter break at home, writing cover letters for job applications. I spent the second week of break at school, taking an abbreviated Managerial Accounting class. This class was much more manageable than Financial Accounting.

Since then, it has been all about recruiting. I had 15 interviews during DIP (dedicated interview period) and am waiting to hear if I move forward in the process or if I'm one-and-done. Surprisingly, I'm not too worried because I know that something, somewhere, will work out.

I used to wonder why MBA bloggers went quiet from January - March in the first year. Now I know. Recruiting is a huge time suck. If Q1 was about academics and Q2 about Employer Information Sessions, then Q3 is definitely about recruiting. Maybe Q4 will be about fun?

Meanwhile, the most fun I'm having right now is submitting a business plan for the Wharton Business Plan competition. Get ready for a heart warming tale of entrepreneurship (not mine) in my next post...

Vibrams Five Fingers Bikila

I usually buy new running shoes ever year or two. This time, I decided to try something different. A few weeks ago I bought a pair of Vibrams Five Fingers Bikila. What the heck are those? Shoes, socks, or something else? I guess 'something else' is most appropriate.

I have had a long and disappointing history with running shoes. You see, I have a normal but lowish arch in my left foot and a flat right foot. My legs also curve outwards from my knee before coming down to my feet - the term for this is 'bow-shaped'. My feet are also relatively big and wide. Put together, I don't have the ideal build for running. Yet, I do it anyways because I enjoy it. Despite my awkward build, I slowly clawed my way to the finish in the 2004 Boston Marathon, one of my proudest accomplishments.


In the last few years I have mostly bought Brooks Stability and Asics Motion Control shoes. These shoes, especially the latter one, are built for people like me who 'over-pronate'. The feet of over-pronators bend inwards at the moment the foot strikes the ground because the runner lacks an arch to counter-balance inward movement foot. This results in excessive pressure on the knee and meniscus. As a result of this pressure, I have torn the meniscus in each of my knees (although only the right foot is flat). This injury takes a long time to heal. A few years ago I started wearing Superfeet orthotics in my shoes to provide additional arch support.

While the orthotics and shoes have reduced pressure on my knees, they have taken the fun out of running. The arch support can be especially uncomfortable and can pinch my feet where I'm lacking an arch. So, after going on a run with a classmate who was wearing the Vibrams shoe, I decided to get a pair for myself.

Vibrams has historically made the soles of shoes. For example, my Merrill hiking shoes have soles made by Vibrams. In the last few years, they have ventured into shoes. Vibrams Five Fingers are meant to simulate barefoot running, the act of running without shoes. Proponents of barefoot running believe that humans were built to run and are quite capable of running without shoes. This is essentially the premise of Born to Run a book (which I hope to read) about the barefoot running habits of humans. However, years of wearing shoes have weakened numerous muscles that are no longer needed when shoes do the work. One example of a weakened muscle is the Achilles tendon, which grows shorter when people wear shoes with heels. Shoes have also changed the biomechanic motion of running. Because shoes contain significant shock absorbing material in the heel, runners can land on their heels (a heel strike) and take long strides without pain. However, this is not the correct /natural motion for running. Rather, the barefoot method of running involves striking in the midfoot and taking shorter strides.

The Bikila, which costs about $100, is the running model of the Vibrams Five Fingers. The shoes features five slots for the five toes, a strap for holding the shoe on, and light tread on the soles of the shoe. There is no lift in the heel. All of this means that running in the Bikila is pretty darn close to running barefoot.

City Sports in Philadelphia, where I bought my shoes, is a big believer in Vibrams and has figured the shoes prominently in the center of their shoe section. Traditional shoe manufacturers have taken notice as well - Nike, Adidas, and others have started making their own minimalist shoes. Vibrams has the potential to really shake up the shoe industry. As shoe technology gets more complex (Nike Air Max, Reebok air pump, Speva Asics sole, etc.), Vibrams says simple is better. I do believe that the barefoot running movement is symptomatic of the minimalist trend that is taking place in the world: 'raw' or 'organic' diets, increased privacy in computer software, etc. The minimalist movement says that we should get back to basics.

I have now run 6 times in my Vibrams: 2 miles on the treadmill, 3 miles on the treadmill, 7 miles outside on the Schuylkill river path, 3.2 miles on the Schuylkill path, 3.4 miles around my house, and 3.4 miles around my house. Here are my experiences so far:

• Socks are needed. When I ran without socks, I got some chafing above my right heel and on the side of my foot just below my big toe. So I bought socks with toe holes and the chafing doesn't happen. The Bikilas are also a little hot so I like the thin socks/liners unless I'm running in the cold.


• The shoes work a lot of muscles that I don't typically use, so there has been a significant adjustment period. I have had soreness in my Achilles tendon, lower calf, and in my right calcaneofibular ligament, which goes from the ankle to the outside of the foot. Because there is no arch support in the Bikilas, my foot does move inward, which is putting pressure on this ligament in my right foot. Hopefully all of this soreness goes away as the muscles get stronger.


• I have had some arch pain in my right foot. This will need to be monitored.


• I may have slightly injured my left knee. A few sessions ago, I tried to run fast and probably the landed the wrong way on one of my strides, causing shock to my left knee. Hopefully it's not a big deal and will heal with time. I'm continuing to carefully run though as there is no shooting pain.


• So far I haven't had any issues with running over rocks. The soles dull the impact of most stones - I can still feel them but generally don't get any sharp pain.


• I felt self-conscious wearing these odd-looking shoes the first few times, but not anymore.


• My running form seems to be changing. I'm consciously avoiding the heel strike and am trying to take smaller slides, while lifting my knees.


• Most importantly, it's a lot of fun to run in these shoes. I get valuable 'ground feedback' with these shoes. It's especially fun to run on soft surfaces like grass or mud. I am also able to run faster since my arches have an opportunity to expand and contract, giving me a bounce in my step. Also, I am able to push off my toes, something I can't do in regular shoes.


• I've had a positive-enough experience with the shoes to want to get another pair of Vibrams. I have my eye on the black Trek-Sport model, which I can use for hiking.

So there you have it. I really like the Vibrams Bikilas. To be fair, I have had some issues, particularly the knee injury and soreness in my right foot. However, the best thing about the shoes is knowing that they haven't caused the injuries, so you can't blame them. If things heal up properly, I'd like to do a 10 mile run in the Bikilas when I get back to Philly. I think I'm only going to attempt this in 30+ weather, though.

HCMG 890

I can safely conclude that HCMG 890 - a.k.a. Medical Device Seminar, is my favorite class of my first semester at Wharton. The picture to the left illustrates a transcatheter aortic valve replacement procedure. The Transcatheter Valve is possibly the most cutting edge piece of technology in interventional cardiology.

HCMG 890 meets once a week on Wednesday from 4:30pm - 7:30pm. During this time, we hear from various industry speakers on various medical device topics. The class has a good mix of science and business - in the end I am always more excited when the primary discussion is science, with some business mixed in.

The best thing about the class is the opportunity to have dinner with the speakers. So far, we have had entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, Medtronic VPs, medical device sales managers, medical device lobbying groups, etc. At these dinners, food, drink, conversation, and money flows freely. This class might be the best kept academic secret at Wharton.

There is an interesting conflict in the perception of medical devices. On the one hand, these devices are exceedingly simple - what are clips, stents, and catheters but clips, barbed wire, and tubes? Yet they cost tremendous sums of money, which insurance companies pay. Ultimately, slight differences in the geometries and materials of these products can have slight differences in clinical effectiveness. But this industry persists on slight differences. Because, in the end, how much would you pay to mitigate adverse reactions (like death) by 3%, or to increase blood flow by 2%? Apparently you would pay a lot (but that number is probably coming down).

Until we can elegantly solve these problems before they start using gene therapy, we'll have a need for devices.

If these devices excite you, check out some of the clips below. If they don't excite you, check out these clips anyway, and you might get excited:

Mitral Clip:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2908701/mitra_clip/

Transcatheter aortic valve replacement:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkgEf1EvRGc