Students Highlight Bright Future in Business Planning Prize

A team of bright stars from the University of Tasmania has taken out this year’s Pharmacy Guild of Australia National Student Business Plan Competition.

The winning team of Alison Hay, Monique Scott, Caitlin O’Keefe and Madeline Spencer won with their fictitious “Isle Pharmacy” which aimed to implement a program to assist the visually impaired through medication management, facilitating patient independence.

The winners were announced at the 2017 Pharmacy Connect conference in Sydney over the weekend. The two runners-up were:

• La Trobe University
• A joint team from James Cook University, University of Queensland and the University of South Australia.

These three teams successfully progressed through the rigours of the competition which commenced in May, producing exciting and innovative business plans and then progressing through the quarter final and semi-final rounds to be named the top three teams for 2017.

The National Student Business Plan Competition is designed to promote creative entrepreneurship among pharmacy students and encourage the development of viable, innovative, pharmacist-owned community pharmacies.

The competition was open to all pharmacy schools across Australia and New Zealand, and this year’s finalists have risen to the top of the 14 entries received.

The competition is an initiative of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia and is sponsored by Sanofi Consumer Healthcare (principal sponsor), EBOS (major sponsor), Gold Cross Products and Services and Pharmaceutical Defence Limited (PDL).

The support of the competition sponsors has opened many new opportunities for young pharmacists in this competition since 2006.

The sponsorship provides $15,000 in cash prizes to the finalists, as well as the opportunity for the students to attend Pharmacy Connect 2017.