Hey Unidis....Congrats on Penn...I have got accepts from UPenn, Northwestern ,Penn State for thebiotech prog and have gone ahead with Upenn...... I havnt applied to CMU....yes you are right that the CMU course is more management focused.However, the Upenn course is brilliant as it is so flexible that one can tailor studies according to ones needs. Moreover, you will be having a few business courses at the Wharton business school , which I feel is a lifetime opportunity. There is no hard and fast rule that you have to carry out a particular set of courses. Penn really encourages interdisciplinary studies and you can apply for more courses at Wharton with the course directors consent. I assume you have gone through the Penn Biotech Group organization. This group offers only managerial relatedaspects of biotech. Students get an opportunity to interact with the business students and get involved in consulting ,analyzing pharma markets ,constructing business models etc. A lot of past students have also got jobs as consultants .
I feel that UPenn has a better business and science school than CMU and the opportunity to do courses at Wharton is a big attraction. Being a Penn alumni and having done courses at Wharton alsoincreases your chances of doing a MBA from Wharton . Furthermore,Philadelphia also has a lot of pharma/biotechcompanies and startups .Though CMU and the MBIOT prog are also good , no doubt.In the end its all about what initiative you take. If students in such courses are very interested in management they wont restrict themselves to thedefined curriculum, You can always take up additional courses and satisfy your interests.
Hope this helps. All the best.
