Reflections from Eli Lilly Case Competition
As midterm exams were looming around the corner that is February, I took a leap of faith and decided to skip an entire day's of class to participate in what would become a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Our team, PharmaSee, had a week to prepare a solution for the case to us in the form of a 10 minute pitch followed by a Q&A session with the judges.
I won't bore you with the details of the day and what happened, but rather I'm going to present what I took away.
Pharma companies are made of people, too
I often forget this, especially since the media doesn't always portray them in a positive light. But after speaking with staff members from many departments, it was clear that their passion isn't much different than that of a healthcare professional, which is to fight for patient outcomes and improve quality of life.
Case in point: A recent, but promising, drug trial for Alzheimer's Disease was considered a failure. The staff's reaction to the results weren't that the billion investment were wasted and profit could not be derived from the money spent, but rather they felt they had let down all the patients who hoped for another option.
Pharmacists play a significant role in the company
It wasn't really apparent to me during school how they did so, but it was impressive how many key staff members came from pharmacy backgrounds. Although the traditional dispensing skill set is given up in their roles, their problem solving and communication skills that were developed during their time as a community pharmacist became central to their day-to-day activities. It wasn't clear to me if their expertise in drug therapy was useful, but I'm sure it couldn't have hurt.
Here I also learned that pharmacists have a large impact on making market access decisions for drug products.
This opportunity has really changed my perspective on pharmacy opportunities in industry and it's put a pharmacy residency in industry on my radar!
What I really wanted to capture
It's been difficult to put into words how I felt after finishing the case competition, but I'd like channel that feeling into words of encouragement. Be it for myself in the future, for any pharmacy students reading this, or an individual who happened to stumble across this post.
Your time at school, or in life, is too short to have doubts about what you want to do. I'm sure I share the perspective of not knowing what's next or ahead with many of you and the uncertainty is hard to get over. But over the years, this age old advice became more and more accurate for me: Trying something new and taking smart risks is exactly how you figure it out.
What's key to all the experiences I've accumulated up until this point is to be completely honest about how I felt going through them (For this case competition, I'd do it all over again, every single time). It's allowed me rule out things that I could do and instead put my energy toward things I did like doing.
I think self-discovery isn't emphasized as often as it needs to be. So let this be a simple reminder. In that, many of our fears and stresses in life can't be solved overnight. So take all the time you need to figure it out and have fun along the way because for every time something doesn't work out, there's something ahead that will and usually, it's for the better.
Our team, PharmaSee, had a week to prepare a solution for the case to us in the form of a 10 minute pitch followed by a Q&A session with the judges.
I won't bore you with the details of the day and what happened, but rather I'm going to present what I took away.
Pharma companies are made of people, too
I often forget this, especially since the media doesn't always portray them in a positive light. But after speaking with staff members from many departments, it was clear that their passion isn't much different than that of a healthcare professional, which is to fight for patient outcomes and improve quality of life.
Case in point: A recent, but promising, drug trial for Alzheimer's Disease was considered a failure. The staff's reaction to the results weren't that the billion investment were wasted and profit could not be derived from the money spent, but rather they felt they had let down all the patients who hoped for another option.
Pharmacists play a significant role in the company
It wasn't really apparent to me during school how they did so, but it was impressive how many key staff members came from pharmacy backgrounds. Although the traditional dispensing skill set is given up in their roles, their problem solving and communication skills that were developed during their time as a community pharmacist became central to their day-to-day activities. It wasn't clear to me if their expertise in drug therapy was useful, but I'm sure it couldn't have hurt.
Here I also learned that pharmacists have a large impact on making market access decisions for drug products.
This opportunity has really changed my perspective on pharmacy opportunities in industry and it's put a pharmacy residency in industry on my radar!
What I really wanted to capture
It's been difficult to put into words how I felt after finishing the case competition, but I'd like channel that feeling into words of encouragement. Be it for myself in the future, for any pharmacy students reading this, or an individual who happened to stumble across this post.
Your time at school, or in life, is too short to have doubts about what you want to do. I'm sure I share the perspective of not knowing what's next or ahead with many of you and the uncertainty is hard to get over. But over the years, this age old advice became more and more accurate for me: Trying something new and taking smart risks is exactly how you figure it out.
What's key to all the experiences I've accumulated up until this point is to be completely honest about how I felt going through them (For this case competition, I'd do it all over again, every single time). It's allowed me rule out things that I could do and instead put my energy toward things I did like doing.
I think self-discovery isn't emphasized as often as it needs to be. So let this be a simple reminder. In that, many of our fears and stresses in life can't be solved overnight. So take all the time you need to figure it out and have fun along the way because for every time something doesn't work out, there's something ahead that will and usually, it's for the better.
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