Student Case Competition Goal and Opportunity
Submit completed proposals no later than March 31, 2023
The DIA Student Case Competition:
- Fosters further engagement between members of DIA’s Student Chapters, students at schools throughout the U.S., and DIA
- Provides an opportunity for students to propose viable solutions to current challenges throughout the drug development lifecycle; and
- Provides significant visibility and engagement for the winning team within the regulatory, biopharmaceutical and healthcare products, academic, patient, and contract research organization (CRO) communities
Each year, DIA will issue one or more specific challenges to which students are invited to respond. The competition will be judged by a committee of DIA Fellows, who include our most experienced and engaged members that encompass a broad range of expertise.
Finalists and winners will have the opportunity for very high visibility and engagement within the global regulatory, biopharmaceutical and healthcare products, academic, patient, and CRO communities. Representatives from each team of finalists, will be given an opportunity to present their work at DIA’s Global Annual Meeting in June 2023, with the Award presented to the winning team at that time. The Global Annual Meeting typically draws an audience of several thousand attendees in person, with broad representation from industry, regulators, academia, patient advocates, and thought leaders in the life sciences research and development space.
While at the meeting, finalists will have an opportunity to attend learning sessions, network, and participate in professional development workshops. Finalists will also have a dedicated opportunity to meet and discuss their proposal further with leaders from DIA, biopharmaceutical, healthcare products companies, CROs, and other related organizations, to increase their exposure to decision makers in the field, while also learning more about future career pathways.
In addition, the winning team’s work product will be featured in DIA’s Global Forum, a monthly publication reaching 66,000+ members of the regulatory and industry communities and beyond. Global Forum offers expert global and regional coverage of the discovery, development, regulation, surveillance, access, and marketing of healthcare products, including interviews with thought leaders and topical articles from DIA educational events.
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Case Competition Details
Background
Social media has been one of the most popular channels to share one’s opinion and communicate thoughts, beliefs, and facts about a certain practice or product. The increased use of social media, especially among the younger generation, has been generating a significant amount of misleading and false information. For years, the FDA has been battling misinformation, and thus, it has become one of the most important FDA priorities as misinformation could lead to individual and public harm. .
Scenario
You are a pharmacist working in a retail pharmacy setting. You notice a shortage of GLP-1 agonists, a class of medication used to treat type 2 diabetes. You also notice an increased volume of GLP-1 agonist prescriptions especially among young female patients. You plan to discuss with your pharmacy team to further investigate this trend. After discussing with your pharmacy team, you become aware of the following articles: article 1, article 2, and article 3. You realize that patients have been using GLP-1 agonists for weight loss after seeing a trend on social media.
Prompt
Prepare a 15-minute presentation to discuss the following:
- Provide specific communication to patients using plain language to:
- Educate them on GLP-1 agonists: mechanism of action, indication, dose, side effects
- Address the social media trend leading to the misuse of GLP-1 agonists
- Provide specific communication to prescribers to:
- Encourage effective prescribing of GLP-1 agonists
- Discuss when it is, and it is not appropriate to prescribe GLP-1 agonists for weight loss
- Provide creative solutions for combating misinformation on GLP-1 agonists
- Provide specific communication to patients using plain language to:
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Project Guidelines
Participating teams are to submit one completed recorded presentation (15 min. max voice over for presentation). Each team will work toward a solution relating to the given prompt. All DIA Students Executive-Board Members are allowed to participate. Issues that arise throughout the competition and questions DIA Student Chapters may have, should be directed to the Student Competition Representative, Surdeep Kulkarni.
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Eligibility
- Teams can be drawn from any accredited college or university based in the United States, including those that have DIA Student Chapters. Please note that an institution can have more than one team participate in the competition
- Teams should consist of between two and four members, all of whom must be students. Teams may include members from multiple schools within the institution (e.g., Pharmacy, Medicine, Public Health, Nursing, Business , etc.). Please note that only two students will be provided travel support if their team or university is selected as a finalist
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Submission
Please register per the registration link above and send completed presentations no later than March 31, 2023, to Students@DIAglobal.org. Incomplete proposals will not be evaluated.
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Evaluation Criteria
Four criteria will be used to evaluate proposals:
- Potential impact of the proposed solution (30% of evaluation score)
- Feasibility of the proposed solution (30% of evaluation score)
- Creativity of the proposed solution (20% of evaluation score)
- Quality of presentation (20% of evaluation score)
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Questions
Questions about the DIA Student Case Competition should be directed to Students@DIAglobal.org.