Joseph Fleming
Three decades ago, pharmaceutical entrepreneur Joseph Fleming’s career path would have been considered unusual. Now, says Fleming, founder of start-up company Novus Health, Inc., a pharmacy degree opens more doors. “There used to be just institutional pharmacy and community pharmacy,” he explains. “Now there’s research pharmacy, pharmacy consulting, pharmacy benefits management, and home-infusion pharmacy. Years ago, that would have all been considered nontraditional. Now it’s not.”
Fleming knows that there’s nothing like that first job to cut your teeth. After earning a master’s degree in pharmacology, he worked for a progressive home health and community pharmacy company called PDC/Medi Shack, where he gained valuable experience. He says that it's unlikely that graduates can launch directly into starting their own companies, so he advises pharmacy students to get their feet wet any way they can. “But keep your eyes open to that big world around you.”
For Fleming, that world led him to combine health care with business. Most recently, he was the chairman and co-founder of Specialty Pharma, Inc., a leading distributor of biotechnology products and high-tech home infusion therapies in the Northeast (he sold the business to Kohlberg and Company in September 2006). Prior to that he co-founded Community Rehab Centers, one of the largest networks of rehabilitation centers in the Northeast, and served in executive roles at several pharmacy and home health-care consulting companies.
Of his entrepreneurial career path, Fleming says, “I like drawing on my clinical background and combining it with a business product that provides a complete service.” In an effort to show future pharmacy students the many opportunities to do just that, Fleming spearheaded the formation of Health Sciences Entrepreneurs at Northeastern. The organization brings alumni in the health-care industry—from the College of Engineering and College of Business Administration, as well as from Bouvé College of Health Sciences—back to campus to discuss health-care issues and emerging business prospects in the health sciences.
