Last year’s national championship NCPA Business Plan Competition winners are seeking another national title for the University of South Carolina College of Pharmacy. Jacob King, Fay Hussain and CharLeigh Steverson won the Kennedy Pharmacy Innovation Center local competition with their presentation of “Magnolia Drug Co.”
King, Hussain and Steverson, all fourth-year students, are headed to residencies and a fellowship following graduation in May. They will learn this summer if they advance to the finals to be judged at the NCPA meeting in October 2024.
The team decided to compete again in this year’s competition to apply what they learned from last year’s efforts.
“We also wanted to try and challenge ourselves by developing a business plan for a pharmacy in a completely different part of the state. This enabled us to come up with new, innovative services that would better serve the community surrounding Magnolia Drug Company and be different than the vision we had for Blue Rudge Apothecary,” says Steverson.
Other teams competing included second place for Bluffton Pharmacy with first-year students Charlize Johnson, Emily Fisher and Logan McCulloh; third place Shirer Family Pharmacy with Branna Kinard. Thanks to a generous donation, all students in the competition received a $1500 scholarship.
Serving as judges for the competition were John Holladay, 1997 Ph.D., clinical assistant professor in Drug Discovery and Biomedical Sciences at the USC College of Pharmacy; Schwanda Flowers, Pharm.D., managing director and loan officer at First Financial Bank; and Jarrod Tippins, 2009 Pharm.D., THE Pharmacy in Florence, South Carolina.
The competition, combined with the annual Entrepreneurship Dinner, was sponsored by College of Pharmacy alumni Ken and Susan Couch. Read more about the 2023 champions in the upcoming issue of Gamecock Pharmacist.
Topics: Pharm.D. Program, Kennedy Pharmacy Innovation Center, Business Plan Competition