Student team takes out business planning prize
15 Sep, 2014
A joint team from the University of Canberra and Charles Sturt University have taken out this
year’s Pharmacy Guild of Australia National Student Business Plan Competition.
The winning team of Jessica Cahill, Jamie Pisani and Cyd Soriano won with their fictitious
“Primelink Pharmacy” which featured two innovative programs – one providing telehealth
services to patients aged over 65, and another involving a Sun Care app aimed at reducing the
incidence of skin cancer in the region.
The winners were announced at the PBN 2014 conference in Melbourne over the weekend. The
two runners-up were:
La Trobe University – Pharmcare Pharmacy – Linda Alexander, Sumeet Khakh and Sylvia Teh
Queensland University of Technology – Complete Pharmacy Townsville – Elena Newey,
Yongmin Kim, Imran Bhagoo and Jesse Flemming
These three teams successfully progressed through the rigours of the competition which
commenced in May, by firstly 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
2014.
They had to complete online financial questions, write additional short answer essays about
business finance and operations and pitch their business ideas to the judges before being selected
to pitch to the PBN delegates and the final judging team.
Following the live pitches, each team met the judging panel to answer some post-pitch questions
about their business ventures. All three teams should be extremely proud of their achievements.
The National Student Business Plan Competition is an initiative 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 this year’s finalists have
risen to the top of the 18 entries received.