MBA students from Rutgers Business School, Newark and New Brunswick placed second in the school’s annual biopharmaceutical case competition, according to a press release from the school.
The Rutgers team — Bishnupriya Kar, Irene Mac, James Ma, Aneesh Vaze and Kinshuk Saxena – won $3,000.
Vaze, a second-year MBA student, said he and his teammates knew they would be strong competitors.
“We were confident that our different backgrounds and internship experiences were sufficient for us to compete against the other schools,” he said.
The case — written by Gary Branning, president of Managed Market Resources —required students to develop a strategy for defending Humira against similar drugs entering the marketplace.
“We looked at the whole situation from the regulatory, legal and commercial aspects,” team member Saxena said. “We examined how biosimilars could affect our product, and we built a fortress around it.”
First place went to the team from Carey Business School – Johns Hopkins University. Yale School of Management took third place.
Rutgers MBA students Mike Koskulics and Jen Abalajon helped market the event with the goal of attracting more schools. Their efforts paid off: A record 25 teams applied for the event, with 10 selected.
Koskulics said the competition’s sponsors, which included Bayer, Novo Nordisk, Novartis, Sanofi Pasteur, Campbell Alliance, Herspiegel Consulting and Buchanan Ingersoll Rooney, helped drive interest in the competition.
“We have such a large number of high-quality sponsors,” he said. “If you’re a first- or second-year MBA student, you have the ability to meet representatives from five or more great companies.”
One of Rutgers’ specialized MBAs is in pharmaceutical management.