The Creighton College of Business is offering a new interdisciplinary master’s degree that integrates science and business in a team-based setting. The Professional Science Master’s degree in bioscience management gives working professionals and graduate students a chance to study the business of science in a 15-month, weekend program starting in June 2009.

The program was primarily designed to give science majors a stronger business background, said Dr. Anne York, program director and associate professor of entrepreneurship, but also for business students to strengthen their skills in the sciences to help them interact with the scientists and researchers they work with.

“It’s available to people who are just coming out of science programs – med school, pharm school, biology, chemistry,” York said.

“But it’s also available to people who are out there working in a lab or a hospital or a pharmacy, whether they want to be managers or just understand why the company they work for does what they do or how they make money.

“The bottom line is that it’s available to non-science majors as well as people with science backgrounds.”

Although PSM degrees are offered in more than 20 academic fields at programs across the country, Creighton’s program in bioscience management is one of only four similar programs and the only one in the midwest.

“To be competitive in the United States, we really need scientists that understand business, and the biosciences are just beaming,” York said.

“This is a field that is really taking off in terms of the opportunities in so many different directions, like pharmaceuticals, agricultural biotechnology, genetic crop modification, ethanol, biofuel, nutraceuticals – biologically based pharmaceuticals – and commercializing inventions that are coming from our medical schools.”

Dr. Anthony Hendrickson, College of Business dean, said the PSM program will give students a competitive edge in the job market because they will be prepared from both a science standpoint and an administrative one.

“It’s a pretty high demand, but it’s very short in supply,” Hendrickson said.

“We don’t have a lot of people who are trained in both sufficiently enough to be able to do these jobs, so that’s why the degree programs are kind of growing.”

Hendrickson said the program fits Creighton’s campus because of the university’s existing emphasis in bioscience.

“We have such [a] strong reputation in our professional schools, and they’re all focused on health sciences. That strong bioscience and then matching that with our strong business program makes perfect sense,” Hendrickson said.

Creighton’s PSM program includes six core courses. Science students take an additional four-course sequence of business classes, and business students take a four-course sequence in the sciences.

“If you come into the program as a science major, you’ll take business courses,” York said. “If you’re a business person, you take fun things like review of biology and chemistry, microbiology, genetics, biochem, drug development and biotechnology. The two now have a common body of knowledge,” York said.

The program is targeted not only to current Creighton affiliates, but other local and regional professionals as well, Hendrickson said.

“Because of the way we’ve set up the courses, we think there’s opportunity for people who don’t live in Omaha to actually come here and take the courses because it’s on a weekend kind of format,” Hendrickson said.

York said the program gained a lot of interest and has already had 11 or 12 applicants. Twenty people will be accepted to the program.

“The good news is they’re all qualified,” York said. “Everybody who has applied so far has qualified for the program, so I’d say we’re half-way there in terms of reaching our goal. I’m thrilled.”

The College of Business is hosting a wine and cheese information session for those interested in the program on March 24 and 31 from 5:30-6:30 p.m. in the Bioscience Entrepreneurship office, lower level Brandeis.

Those interested in applying can do so online at www.creighton.edu/business/psm. The deadline for applications is March 31.