On April 3, the winners of the Value of Industry Pharmacists (VIP) Case Competition were announced, with students from Chapman University’s School of Pharmacy (CUSP) ranking in fourth place out of a total of 66 participating submissions. 

The students on the Chapman team were Tupak Aguirre, Noble Chea, Jasmine Cho, Megan Shieh, Nikki Derleth, Journey Cordero, Audrey Marie Ison, Elyn Lam, Vivian Ly, Kindra Myers, Jessie Tsai, Adva Shilon and Kristine Bustamante.

“It was amazing to see the level of teamwork as this large team of students engaged over a few months to advance through different rounds,” said Dr. Reza Taheri, the faculty advisor of the Industry Pharmacists Organization (IPhO) student organization and a professor in the CUSP. “This competition not only challenges students’ analytical and critical thinking skills, but also fosters their business acumen, creativity, collaboration and teamwork skills.”

The Industry Pharmacists Organization (IPhO) is an organization dedicated to working with pharmacists on developing, producing, marketing and utilizing different types of medicines on the pharmaceutical market. It accomplishes this by providing information to IPhO members alongside organizing efforts to bring to light more information about drug use and development. It also acts as a network for different pharmacists to exchange information and find employment opportunities.

“Pharmacists play a vital role in the drug development process and hence have a pivotal role in the pharmaceutical industry,” Taheri said. “As (CUSP) continues its exponential growth trajectory, we look forward to having our graduates play a vital role in the future of the drug development process in industry, academia and other settings.”

The VIP Case Competition is hosted annually by the IPhO and allows student teams to work on the simulated development and marketing of a novel medicine, going through various stages of research, regulation and presentation in order to bring the drug to market. The competition allows participating students to get a better idea of what it is like to bring a new drug to the pharmaceutical market while engaging with different areas of research, presentation skills and teamwork as they collaborate over several weeks to develop and market their novel drug.

“This was a great opportunity for me to practice my leadership by guiding 14 pharmacy students towards a common goal,” said Chea, a second-year pharmacy student and one of the team leaders. “I was able to facilitate communication between the group members, set up regular check-in meetings and receive feedback from chapter advisors and pharmacists in the industry.”

Chea reflected that she learned about more than just the research and marketing aspects of the pharmaceutical industry; she also learned some personal lessons about becoming a strong leader among her peers. Rotating between her school work at Chapman and coordinating between the various team members was something she noted was a challenge but also something to improve upon for next time.

Aguirre, who has participated in the competition for the past two years, called working with other students to be one of the enjoyable parts of the competition, especially since differing opinions resulted in a better answer and led to different team members learning more about each other. 

Coming out of the competition, Aguirre felt as though his skills in performing research, communicating between team members and leading his team had improved.

“It took an incredible amount of effort from our 14 team members and chapter advisors over the span of four long months,” Chea said. “It feels great to be recognized on the national level for our hard work and I hope that CUSP can highlight the pharmaceutical industry more as a potential career route.”

Both Chea and Aguirre hope that future teams will learn as much about themselves as they learn about the way the pharmaceutical industry works during the competition. Ultimately, Aguirre anticipates that Chapman will be a continual top-three team among its competitors going forward.

“Placing fourth is a huge accomplishment for our second year,” Aguirre said. “A lot of work from all 14 members went into this project and it was rewarded with a finalist position. There is still a lot of work to do to break into the top three, and by learning from this year's competition, we hope to improve our weaknesses next year.”