Awards

Funded by Pharmasave, the Pharmasave Business Competition  is held annually and tied to a third-year Waterloo Pharmacy course that has led to at least three real-world businesses. The competition pushes students to solve real-word challenges they encounter throughout co-op and to become innovative health-care providers.

2024

Leveraging AI to streamline MedsChecks 

A pharmacist’s day has always been demanding and time-consuming but with the addition of an expanded scope, such as minor ailment prescribing and MedsCheck reviews, pharmacists are busier than ever and are expected to do more with less.

During their co-op work terms, Brian Hui (Rx2025), Musab Iqbal (Rx2025) and Aram Mohammadi (Rx2025) performed MedsCheck reviews with patients. One-on-one consultations between a patient and pharmacist to review their medications, provide patient education and appropriately identify and resolve therapeutic problems. Across the board they noticed that patients with more complex situations, which they defined as taking more than six medications, were missed more often.

“All our co-op work terms had a challenge in common,” Mohammadi says. “The underserved population that needs MedsChecks the most were consistently skipped or sped through due to the complexity of their cases.”

“With the older adult population growing and comorbidities on the rise, complex cases may be even more prevalent in the future. However, when conducted effectively, MedsChecks optimize patient health outcomes and reduce pressure on our strained healthcare system,” Hui adds.

To help address this gap the team created an innovative new business idea, MyPharmacist, an AI powered clinical support tool that transcribes information gathered during MedsChecks reviews. MyPharmacist then provides the pharmacist with suggestive talking points to further discuss with the patient to deliver better care.

MyPharmacist’s aim is to optimize pharmacist workflows and streamline documentation to cut a pharmacist’s documentation time by 50 per cent and to give room for pharmacists to facilitate meaningful care and enhance future patient health outcomes.

“The focus is not only on treatment but prevention as well, to prevent the development of severe disease complications and reduce healthcare expenditures,” Iqbal adds.

The team is committed to developing MyPharmacist into a product that can help overcome the barriers pharmacists and patients face to give space for more meaningful care.

“Converting our idea into a working product is our next biggest challenge, while being mindful of patient data privacy,” says Hui.

They are looking to use the prize money to bring MyPharmacist to life by expanding their research into AI, exploring additional funding opportunities and seeking collaborative partnerships.

“The intersection of pharmacy and technology will change the way we think of clinical practice, not just to disrupt but to bring meaningful change to patients and the profession,” Iqbal says. “The pharmacy of tomorrow will be revolutionary.”

2023

New app idea helps pharmacists quickly connect with patients for prescription needs

“Every year, the Pharmasave Business Competition proves pharmacists can be entrepreneurs. Our course and the competition are unique to the School and provide students with the opportunity to practice the skills of entrepreneurship while interacting with the robust start-up ecosystem in our community,” says Dean Pacey, adjunct lecturer at the School of Pharmacy.

This year's winning team ­— Iryna Zhyrnova, Amanda Nicole Helka and Alli Meyer — took the title with their business, URinCharge. The team focused on connecting patients and pharmacists to solve urgent women’s health issues.

However, minor ailment prescribing is voluntary for pharmacists and only those certified and participating can prescribe medications. Finding participating pharmacists to solve immediate needs remains an issue.

The teams’ app, using GPS location, allows a person experiencing UTI symptoms to connect with a pharmacy of their choice to book an appointment within two hours. The app lists all pharmacies that report they have available appointments to give the patient the option to choose which location and time works best for them.

“Technology is growing exponentially and there seems to be an app for everything on the market. Digital connection is becoming a normal part of everyday life — why not apply an app to something that can help people take charge of their health,” Zhyrnova says.

Once the app matches the user with a pharmacy the patient will receive either a referral to a physician or their prescribed medication, depending on their situation. If the consultation results in a prescription, the patient can then choose their preferred pharmacy to fulfill the prescription.

“Our goal is to help people experiencing UTIs, typically women, get access to care in a way that won’t force them to take time off work and impact their life,” Helka says.

Winning the competition reassured the team that their idea has strong potential for real-world application. With the health care landscape changing, innovative ideas will play a significant role in ensuring a sustainable health-care system."If the last two to three years has taught us anything, it is that the Canadian health care landscape will continue to face disruptive change in the coming decades. This will create tremendous opportunities for innovation and solutions-oriented ideas, both within traditional pharmacy settings and in non-traditional role,” Pacey says.

The team surveyed a group of pharmacists in Ontario to demo the project and provide feedback. “It was amazing to see pharmacists excited about the potential of our idea,” Meyer says.

The team hopes to use the prize money to develop the app with the software engineer and app developer they have been consulting with, once minor ailment prescribing has an uptake in Ontario.

“This project was close to our hearts,” Zhyrnova says. “Historically, women’s health has been understudied and excluded from clinical trials. Side effects and drug metabolism may differ among women and so there is still much left to investigate in that area. It’s so important to advocate for the profession of pharmacy and women.”

2021

Medication timeline interface wins Pharmasave Business Competition

Picture this. You are a busy community pharmacist. The phone is ringing, a technician is off sick, you have dozens of prescriptions to process and a long-time patient approaches you with a new prescription. The patient thinks they’ve taken this medication before, a few years ago. You open your software system and look up the patient; you see a long list of information. Locating what you need to know takes time. The phone is still ringing and there are two other patients in line.

Enter RxHx. The business venture proposed by George Daskalakis, fourth-year pharmacy student, was built with situations like this in mind. George is the winner of the Pharmasave Business Competition, an event where pharmacy students design innovative business plans and compete for a $5000 prize.

“Current pharmacy software systems were built around controlling the inventory of medications in and out of the pharmacy,” George says. “These tools have not kept up with the evolving role of the pharmacist. In particular, their user interfaces are remarkably inefficient for the majority of a modern pharmacist’s daily tasks.”

By George’s calculations, RxHx can save pharmacists approximately 30 minutes per day, creating availability for clinical services that add value for patients and increase revenue.

“The goal of RxHx is to modernize pharmacy management systems, freeing up time so that pharmacists can practice to their full scope,” he says.  

Most pharmacy software displays patient medication profiles in a list format. Pharmacist have to scroll tediously through that list, looking for specific information so that they can better answer drug-related questions, conduct clinical services and ensure the therapeutic appropriateness of dispensed medications.

“RxHx takes that list and turns it into a timeline,” George says. “Pharmacists no longer have to data mine when analyzing patient profiles. Since medication histories are displayed in a timeline, pharmacists can more easily navigate to the information they need to answer basic questions about medication regimens such as when one medication dose was changed relative to the initiation of another medication. In addition to saving pharmacists time, the software is much more visually appealing than staring at lists of medications all day.”

It’s a simple concept, but one that was compelling to the judges of the 2020 competition, all of whom were seasoned entrepreneurs and business people. In 2020, the business case competition was embedded in a senior pharmacy student course on entrepreneurship. Students create a venture idea that develops or discovers a new product or service innovation within the world of pharmacy. They bring it to life through the Lean Startup methodology. Like with developing a real company, students are invited to consult other experts among their classmates and in the pharmacy field to refine their idea. They must conduct research, develop a business plan and present it to the panel of judges. The judges reward the completeness of the pitch, the student’s depth of understanding and their ability to communicate their idea and respond to questions. George’s proposal was chosen from among five pitches.

2019

Travel health kit company wins annual Pharmasave Business Competition

Out-of-country vacations can be tricky to plan. Do you need a visa, are there specific vaccinations, can you drink the water? Medications in particular can be challenging to pack. Oversees, a company designed by five Rx2020 pharmacy students, promises an easy answer to these questions.

“We designed Oversees to provide accurate information and convenient travel health services to Canadian travellers,” says Lee Pham from the Oversees team. “It’s a service that provides personalized travel necessities, making travel health planning a stress-free experience.”

Oversees is the winner of the 10^th annual Pharmasave Business Competition, a business-design challenge that pits pharmacy students against each other in a battle for a $5,000 prize. Students generate business ideas and demonstrate how their companies are situated to succeed in the current market.

Working in teams, they pitched their businesses in the Fundamentals of Business Administration and Management course coordinated by Dean Pacey. The top five pitches were selected to present in front of a panel of industry experts who, after challenging deliberation, chose Oversees as the winner.

“Oversees provided an innovative solution for busy travelers, leveraging a concept prominent and familiar to most clients shopping in the digital age,” says Jaspreet Dhaliwall from Pharmasave. “Oversees ensures patients are provided with essential travel health items, with the click of a key, shipping direct to the patient’s home.  Congratulations to the team for having the vision to support traveling patients in a timely and extremely convenient fashion.”

To develop the idea for the Oversees, the team, many of whom have a background or interest in travel health, examined current pain points in the trip-planning process.

“We found that travellers spend lots of time researching what over-the-counter products they need, or feel they have to book an appointment with a health care provider to get this information,” says Lee.

To alleviate this stress, the team proposed a website-based system where travellers login and answer questions about their trip which are used to create a personalized travel kit recommendation.

 “All our recommendations are evidence based, provided by our in-house pharmacy team,” says Lee.

For travel-related medical services like vaccinations, Oversees plans to partner with travel clinics and refer users either to the closest pharmacy that administers travel vaccines or to a travel clinic. In 2018, Canadians made 4.7 million trips to oversea destinations and 15% of travellers visited a travel clinic before their trips. Oversees saw this market opportunity, and designed their company around it, anticipating future growth in the travel industry.

2018

Pharmacy student relief service wins annual Pharmasave Business Competition

It’s no secret that government cutbacks in recent years have created stress for community pharmacists. Combine these funding cuts with an expanding scope that adds services like vaccinations and MedsChecks, and many pharmacists feel that they’re expected to somehow do more with less.

RxRabbit was designed to address this problem. The business was developed by pharmacy students Riley Kim, Sabina Rafikova, Kylie Edwards, Neeraj Gupta, and Roger Ayoub and was the winner of the 2018 Pharmasave Industrial Case Competition.

“RxRabbit will help pharmacies maximize workflow and profit, while also providing a convenient way for pharmacy students to hone skills and build their careers,” explains Roger Ayoub, the team’s sales and marketing director.

The service connects pharmacies with pharmacy students via an online platform that can be accessed on desktop and mobile. Employers sign up and post short-term job availabilities.

“Maybe they want to run a flu clinic for a few days, or offer a dedicated time when patients can complete MedsChecks,” says Roger. “Or perhaps they have a backlog of work they want to get to and need someone who can handle simple patient inquiries.”

RxRabbit finds students to fill these short-term needs. Students sign up for the platform and get matched with job opportunities that meet their search criteria. After a shift is completed, both student and employer have the opportunity to rate each other.

Relief work – finding temporary labour to respond to gaps in pharmacy staffing - is a staple of the community pharmacy environment. Pharmacists register with relief services like RxRabbit and are matched to posted jobs at pharmacies. However, there is no relief service that targets pharmacy students: existing platforms cater to licensed pharmacists.

“RxRabbit is the first relief service to focus on an untapped demographic of potential workers – pharmacy students,” explains Ayoub. “Students receiving training like injections certification and have experience in pharmacy environments. Due to the rigours of pharmacy school, they often can’t commit to a consistent part-time job at a pharmacy. Short-term relief work is ideal for this audience.”

“With about 2,000 pharmacy students in Ontario at any given time, and 4,000 pharmacies across the province, we see lots of potential for growing our business,” says Ayoub. Dhaliwall also commented on the utility of the student’s proposed business:

“This year’s group, RxRabbit, presented a novel idea to not only support community pharmacists, but also provide pharmacy students with essential work experience,” she says.  “We are hopeful to see RxRabbit serving the needs of pharmacists soon.”

2017

Business-to-business health company pitch wins annual Pharmasave business competition

Many Canadians are busier than ever before: workplaces are fast-paced and digital communication makes it hard to relax and disconnect. With so much going on, it’s easy to neglect health, especially when doctor and specialist appointments involve long waits or time off work.

Zoppy, a business designed by pharmacy students Israa Ali, Rida Bukhari, Rui Su, Ali Syed and Paula Wang, proposes a strategy for making health care easier to access for busy Canadians. Zoppy is the 2017 winner of the Pharmasave Business Competition, an event where third-year pharmacy students design innovative business plans and compete for a $5000 prize.

Zoppy is a business-to-business company. The students proposed partnering with insurance companies to offer in-house health care providers for companies and their employees. As part of the insurance coverage employees normally receive, they would be able to take advantage of Zoppy’s services.

These services would take many forms starting with an online health portal. The portal would be secure and private and would store the employee’s health information. It would also allow them to send messages to their health care providers and to make appointments.

"We envision Zoppy to be an opportunity for pharmacists to use their skills to the fullest extent - optimizing pharmacotherapy, managing chronic conditions, and practicing preventative medicine through counselling and education," says team member Rui Su.

Zoppy would be the first company to offer in-house clinicians that are available to employees on a daily basis. These in-person consultations could occur with a wide range of professionals such as pharmacists, physicians, nurses, social workers, dietitians, and health coaches. The health care providers would also have access to point-of-care kits to do quick testing for conditions like high blood pressure or COPD. The pharmacist would be at the centre of this model, managing the patient’s care plans after the patients meet with physicians.

For employees, access to Zoppy means quicker access to health care and improved physical and mental health. For companies, it means increased worker productivity and fewer sick days. For insurance companies, Zoppy’s services translate to decreased use of employer health care plans and therefore more savings.

“Zoppy was a strong proposal that included a holistic model of care,” says Jaspreet Dhaliwall from Pharmasave. “A business model that incorporates professionals from across the circle of care, including insurance companies, was an innovative solution that differentiates Zoppy in today’s competitive health care sector.”

2016

Student-run clinic proposal wins annual Pharmasave Business Competition

Though pharmacists in Ontario can provide more clinical services than ever before, many retail pharmacies can be too busy to offer one-on-one testing and medication review for all their patients.

POCkit Clinics, a business designed by pharmacy students Denise Keller, Sarah Blythe, Britney Marshall and Vivian Bui, provides a solution to this problem. Their business proposal won this year’s Pharmasave Industrial Case Competition. The competition pits third-year pharmacy student teams against their classmates in a battle for a $5,000 prize that tests their business acumen and innovation in the field of pharmacy.

POCkit Clinics is a clever play on “Point-of-Care” kits, kits that include screening technology which give patients health-related readings in real-time.  The POCkit Clinics business has students bring these kits to pharmacies to deliver student-run clinical services. POCkit Clinics features tests like blood pressure and respiration that are often used to monitor the health of patients with chronic illnesses like high blood pressure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorders (COPD).

In a busy community pharmacy, many pharmacists neither have the access to the latest screening tools or the time to conduct assessments and consultations with patients on results. POCkit Clinics proposes a quick and affordable solution to that issue.

Pharmacists can request a POCkit clinic to come to their pharmacy for a day. The business sends students with the latest screening tool for the requested condition. Students are trained in using the device and providing clinical services, such as medication reviews. Patients will benefit from POCkit Clinics through increased access to thorough, patient-focused care and education about their chronic diseases.

Since POCkit Clinics is a mobile business, the company would purchase expensive screening equipment once and be able to use it broadly, saving pharmacies from the expense of investing in technology themselves.

Pharmacy students receive comprehensive and up-to-date training from the University of Waterloo. By partnering with pharmacies, patients can recieve high-quality clinical services, ensuring that those with chronic diseases receive optimal patient care. Students will benefit from the opportunity to gain additional training and more clinical experience before graduation.

2015

Pharmacy students put patients first in Pharmasave Business Competition

Preparing for the expanded role of pharmacists, a group of Waterloo pharmacy students proved they have the business savvy and pharmaceutical know-how to kick-start a business that puts pharmacists on the front line of health care.The Pharmasave Business Competition pits third-year pharmacy student teams against their classmates in a battle for a $5,000 prize that tests their business acumen and innovation in the field of pharmacy.

“Thinking out of the box is what’s truly crucial to this type of learning and exercise,” said Waterloo professor Roderick Slavcev.

Teams have to solve real-life business problems in a way that aligns with Ontario health care regulations. They have a week to put together a feasibility study and are graded on it, making the competition a highly stressful event, said Slavcev.

Students pitch their ideas to a panel of pharmacists and business people.

The winning team ­– Jenn MacKenzie, Steven Crone, Marz Tepczynska, Ashlie McGuire (Altman) and Sandra MacTavish – took the title with their business, Beyond Wellness Pharmsave. With a slogan of “Exceeding your Health Expectations,” the team turned the traditional pharmacy business model on its head.

Typically, when patients walk into a pharmacy they don’t see a pharmacist until after their prescription is filled, but under the team’s business plan a patient walking into their pharmacy would see a pharmacist first, who would ensure the patient’s prescription was appropriate.

In their pitch, the business would include a nurse practitioner who would treat patients with minor ailments, such as skin conditions and allergies.

Ontario health care regulations are expected to change so that pharmacists can treat minor ailments in the future. The team planned for this scenario in their business and had the pharmacists shift to taking over care of patients with minor ailments once the regulations changed. The business would keep the nurse practitioner, who would oversee a walk-in clinic, within the pharmacy.

Winning the competition reassured the team that they were on the right track with their idea, said MacKenzie. It gave us reassurance that in the real world we can be successful business owners.

The competition is meant to challenge students to find the gaps and pain points in health care that pharmacy is perfectly suited to fill, said Slavcev. “We have the ability to cost-effectively improve access to health care,” he said.

It’s also a reminder of the unique opportunities available to pharmacists and pharmacy, said Billy B. Cheung, Region Director of Pharmacy and Strategic Initiatives for Pharmasave Ontario, which sponsors the competition. We continue to be inspired and amazed at the enthusiasm, creativity and innovation presented by the students through this competition each year. The students truly take on the challenge of developing viable business ideas. - Cheung

2014

The 5th annual Pharmasave Industrial Case Competition took place on Wednesday, July 30. Students in PHARM 350 Fundamentals of Business Administration and Management had a week to showcase their mastery of business concepts and demonstrate creativity and entrepreneurship in developing a business plan and pitch to promote new pharmacy innovations. 

Congratulations goes to the team members of Caring for your Kidneys: Trina McFarlane, Michelle Holm, Christine Hockin, Angela Quach, Holly Meginnis, and Marcus Walz.

Their business proposal looked at the role they could play in continuous renal function monitoring with point of care devices that measure serum creatinine. With the expanded scope of practice, pharmacists can provide a point of care creatinine service for patients to assess kidney function and adjust medication dosing to prevent adverse effects.

This service further demonstrates the high quality clinical care that pharmacists can provide as part of the health care team for patients. Services like this will become increasingly important to ensure the overall health and well-being of the aging Canadian population and to support our health care system. 

The University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy would like to congratulate the winning team and all participants for the quality of their ideas and their hard work throughout the competition. Thanks to Pharmasave for sponsoring the $5,000 annual prize and for their continued support in the success of University of Waterloo Pharmacy students. Thanks also goes out to the presentation judges, Marc Gibson (Velocity Science), Michael Thompson (Pharmasave), and David Windross (Teva Canada). 

2011

PharmaSave Industrial Case Competition

Congratulations to the team of Alia Thawer, Calvin Poon, Catherine Prochazka, Vanessa Raco and Mihir Patel who are this year’s winners of the PharmaSave Industrial Case Competition. The title of their proposal was “University of Waterloo, School of Pharmacy Clinical Capstone Program: A self-sustaining business model“. The quality of the submissions this year was excellent making it very difficult for the judges to come up with a winner. Congratulations also to the team of Mitchell Peart, Kaitlin Poredos, Jennifer Seguin, William Shannon, and Cindy Yuen and to the team of Laura Ezeife, Kristina Ahrens, Meagan Shippey, Caitlin Jones, and Andrea Staruch who finished close behind the winners.   

Innovation and entrepreneurship in pharmacy are critical if we are to meet the health care needs of Canadians in the 21st century. Based on the ideas proposed in this competition, I am confident that University of Waterloo pharmacy students and alumni will be leading the way in finding new ways to deliver high-quality, cost-effective pharmaceutical care to patients. The University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy salutes the winners as well as the other students who participated.    

Thanks to PharmaSave for making this competition possible through their generous sponsorship. We also thank the judges for giving up their time to help out and Professor Roderick Slavcev for organizing the competition.