Three Touro College of Pharmacy (TCOP) students took second place at the Pharmacist Society of the State of New York Business Plan Competition, held during the organization’s mid-winter conference at the end of January.

P2 Virleny Garcia, P3 Tinnie Liao and P3 Jennifer Tsan presented a business plan on creating a smoking cessation program inside of a pharmacy.

“The business case we received was starting an independent community pharmacy with an additional service to improve health outcomes in the community,” explained Tsan. “We added the smoking cessation program given how dangerous cigarette smoke is. We wrote up a business plan and came up with a budget and marketing program along with a location analysis.”

Team members said that they developed the idea after learning about the high rates of asthma and chronic pulmonary problems in Harlem.

“We felt it could be an important service to offer to the community.”

The chance to create a business plan was a fun change from their usual studies, team members said.

“We’re used to talking about drugs, medications and patients,” explained Tsan. “This was great since it gave us the opportunity to learn about the business aspect of the field. We were able to network with a group of pharmacy and business owners and learned how they started their own pharmacy.”

The competition was judged by a panel composed of faculty members of the University of Buffalo and independent pharmacy owners. TCOP students P2 Melody Kwang Mabial, P2 Kenya Hardie Anderson and P2 Claudette Donatien also delivered poster presentations during the conference.

Though it wasn’t all-work-no-play at the conference: the TCOP students also won the High-Roller Award during Casino night.