The U. Arkansas Graduate team, BiologicsMD, will ring the NASDAQ closing bell on June 11 at 4 p.m. EST in New York City.
BiologicsMD were given the opportunity to ring the NASDAQ bell after winning the international business competition Global Moot Corp Competition, hosted by the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas. As global champions, BiologicsMD was awarded $25,000 and more than 110,000 in in-kind awards for their business plan.
“It is like the Superbowl of business competitions, and our team won for their business plan to create and market an osteoporosis medication,” said Carol Reeves, associate professor of management for the Sam Walton College of Business. “It will take about four years for the drug to get on the market, but I predict in about 10 years this drug will really change some womens lives.”
For the students, this is a dream come true after all the work put in to the business plans.
“It’s unbelievable! Even with the successes that Carol Reeves’ teams have had in the past years, this was beyond our imagination,” said Misty Stevens, team member of BiologicsMD. “The best thing about it is that ringing the NASDAQ bell is a great reward for a lot of hard work by the whole team and by Carol as an advisor. Also, the press we’ve received from our winnings is already paying off.”
This year, Moot Corp featured 40 teams from 12 countries.
“We went up against and beat Harvard, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, etc. It’s unheard of. Other large state schools would freeze up against these schools, but not us,” Reeves said. “We have students competing from engineering and science, not just business, which is probably why we are so good.”
Another U of A team, Silicon Solar Solutions LLC, won second runner-up in the Moot Corp competition.
Members of BiologicsMD include Paul Mlakar, Michael Thomas and Misty Stevens, all students in the Sam M. Walton College of Business managerial Master of Business Administration; and Robyn Goforth, a research professor in biological sciences who is earning a Certificate in Entrepreneurship. Carol Reeves is the adviser for the team.
BiologicsMD also won the Rice University business plan competition in April.