The Ohio Northern University Raabe College of Pharmacy student chapter of the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) Business Plan Team was selected as one of the top 10 teams in the nation for its business plan, “Hygeia Specialty Pharmacy,” in the 11th annual Good Neighbor Pharmacy NCPA Pruitt-Schutte Student Business Plan Competition.

ONU competed against 42 schools and colleges of pharmacy and, with its top-10 showing, has been invited to present a poster of its business plan at the 116th Annual Convention and Trade Exposition in Austin, Texas, in October. The ONU team consists of Jennifer Provost (team captain), a sixth-year pharmacy major from Indianapolis, Ind., Erica Tolle, a sixth-year pharmacy major from Springfield, Ohio, and Paul Westervelt, a sixth-year pharmacy major from Westerville, Ohio. Dee Dee Myers, pharmacy and laboratory instructor, served as the advisor.

The goal of the competition is to motivate pharmacy students to create a business model for buying an existing independent community pharmacy or opening a new pharmacy. Through this competition, NCPA is better able to prepare tomorrow’s pharmacy entrepreneurs for successful futures. The Business Plan Competition is the first national competition of its kind in the pharmacy profession and honors two great champions of independent community pharmacy: the late Neil Pruitt Sr. and the late H. Joseph Schutte. The competition is supported by Good Neighbor Pharmacy, Pharmacists Mutual Companies and the NCPA Foundation.

The remaining finalists in the top 10 were Midwestern University College of Pharmacy-Glendale; Roseman University of Health Sciences College of Pharmacy; University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy; University of Oklahoma College of Pharmacy - OKC Campus; University of the Pacific - Thomas J. Long School of Pharmacy; University of Arkansas Medical Sciences College of Pharmacy: University of California San Francisco School of Pharmacy: University of Oklahoma College of Pharmacy at Tulsa: and the University of Washington School of Pharmacy. Submissions were judged by a panel of 50 NCPA members and Good Neighbor Pharmacy business coaching consultants.

All participating schools receive a plaque commemorating their participation in the competition. Each year, competing schools receive an engraved plate to add to their plaque, and teams placing in the top 10 receive a special plate acknowledging this distinction. For more information about the Business Plan Competition, please visit NCPA’s website.

The National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA®) represents the interests of America’s community pharmacists, including the owners of more than 23,000 independent community pharmacies. Together they represent an $88.7 billion health care marketplace, dispense nearly 40 percent of all retail prescriptions, and employ more than 300,000 individuals, including more than 62,000 pharmacists. To learn more, go to www.ncpanet.org, visit facebook.com/commpharmacy, or follow NCPA on Twitter @Commpharmacy.