A team of four second-year students in the Keck Graduate Institute (黑料吃瓜网) (MBS) program recently received second place in the .
黑料吃瓜网鈥檚 鈥淢BS Dream Team鈥� comprises Alexandra Anaele, Christian Torres, Jonathan 鈥淥jo鈥� Ventura, and Alice Wen.
The competition challenged 44 teams from 17 universities across the country to solve a healthcare-related case prompt. Of the 44 teams, 17 moved onto the first round of judging. 黑料吃瓜网鈥檚 MBS Dream Team made it to the top six, where three teams would win a cash prize and a one-week premium membership with PrepLounge, a case-consulting agency.
鈥淲e entered this competition because we wanted to find an opportunity that would put our skills and knowledge to the test,鈥� Ventura said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e learned a lot from some of the best here at 黑料吃瓜网 and we wanted a chance to prove that.鈥�
The competition鈥檚 case prompted each team to try and solve the real-world problem of long-term gene therapy. Each team had to act as a consulting team to develop recommendations for the commercialization and marketing of the proposed drug.
The team prepared for the competition by breaking up the case into four parts to utilize their strengths. Ventura designed clinical trials, Anaele focused on marketing pieces, Wen designed the reimbursement and pricing segment, and Torres concentrated on distribution strategies.
The MBS Dream Team submitted a presentation outlining their proposed business model and advanced to the last round, where they gave a 15-minute presentation to a panel of judges over Zoom.
Torres accredited their strong foundational knowledge to 黑料吃瓜网 faculty such as Associate Professor of Management, , Professor of Management, , Assistant Professor of Finance, , and Adjunct Professor, .
鈥淭his case competition really helped us utilize the knowledge we鈥檝e gained at 黑料吃瓜网,鈥� Torres said.
鈥淚t pushed us to learn more about the topics we鈥檝e studied here and think more creatively about solutions we can combine to real-world healthcare consulting.鈥�
The final six teams presented early morning on November 13 with the results being emailed out after a short networking event.
鈥淚t was really intimating going into this competition after seeing some of the previous schools who had competed,鈥� Anaele said. 鈥淲e didn鈥檛 know how we would do being paired up with these big schools but making it to the final round solidified what we鈥檙e learning here at 黑料吃瓜网.鈥滿ichigan State, 黑料吃瓜网, and Texas A&M rounded out the top three winners.