Wake Forest University School of Business Biotech Case Competition Winners
Wake Forest University School of Business Biotech Conference and Case Competition awarded first place to a Johns Hopkins University team during a gala held March 22 at Biotech Place in downtown Winston-Salem.
Wake Forest University School of Business Biotech Case Competition Winners
Students offer Boston Scientific strategies to strengthen patient treatment pathways
Wake Forest University School of Business held its 5th annual Biotech Conference and Case Competition March 21-22.
Lead sponsor Boston Scientific challenged eight student teams to find creative ways the company can deliver value to patients from diagnosis to treatment and post-procedure care in its endoscopy division. Teams spent the day presenting their proposals to a panel of judges after working on them for one week for the chance at a share of $18,000 in prize money.
Teams competing included Boston University, Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, North Carolina State University, Ohio State University, University of California, Berkeley, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest University.
“We are so pleased with the recommendations the teams made during their presentations,” said Rob Travis, global group director portfolio & marketing strategy in Boston Scientific’s endoscopy division. “It’s remarkable to see so much talent in one room, to hear such innovative solutions. It wasn’t just the quality of the ideas that were presented, but also the quality of how they were presented. Our panel was extremely impressed.”
The 5th Biotechnology Conference and Case Competition was organized by student co-chairs Paul Chen, Jo-Zette Dick, and Dana Upton, all second-year MBA students, and Dipen Vyas, a second year Ph.D./MBA at the School of Business. Deepika Poranki, a commercialization associate at Wake Forest Innovations also served on the organizing team. Len Preslar, adjunct professor of practice and Ram Baliga, John B. McKinnon professor of management at the School of Business served as the faculty advisors.
Conference events included student networking sessions and a keynote address on March 21 by Boston Scientific Executive Vice President and President of Medical Surgery Michael P. Phalen in Broyhill Auditorium in Farrell Hall.
Johns Hopkins takes home first place and $10,000. It is the second consecutive win for the university. Students on the team included Paloma Navas Gutierrez, Po-Yuan (Robert) Hsiao, Matthew Koch, Yuanming Suo and Ying-Ying Wang. Second place and $5,000 went to Virginia Tech University and Ohio State University came in third, taking home a prize of $2,000.
Ohio State also took home an additional $500 for a special judges’ prize of Most Creative and Ohio State team member Robert Reznick was also awarded $500 as the competition’s MVP.
Sponsors in addition to Boston Scientific include Wake Forest Baptist Health, Wake Forest Innovations, Benefit Advocates, Bourne Partners, Cornerstone Health Care, Kilpatrick Townsend Attorneys at Law, Merz, Novarus Healthcare, and GE.
Contact: Stephanie Skordas, skordas@wfu.edu, 336.758.4098
