IPhO News

IPhO is pleased to share the following consensus statement on behalf of the newly-formed Academic Industry Fellowship Alliance (AIFA).

This decision is a step in the right direction to bring stability to a marketplace in which offers were trending earlier each year—as early as the beginning of November—which is 8 months before the Fellowship start date.

AIFA programs offer more than 70% of available fellowship positions. It is not known at this time what the offer timing will be for the other 25-30% of programs. Some may make offers earlier, some may agree to the December 7 timing, while others will extend offers later or even "off cycle."

Class of 2023 students are strongly encouraged to attend the upcoming IPhO Annual Meeting from September 9-11 for information on program updates. Students should also follow IPhO news posts/email announcements to learn more.

Consensus Statement:

Recognizing that the choice of a Post-Doctoral Industry Fellowship is an important decision, the Academic Industry Fellowship Alliance (AIFA) has agreed to extend offers for Fellowships no earlier than December 7, 2022.

• AIFA is comprised of Keck Graduate Institute (KGI), Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (MCPHS), Northeastern University Pharmaceutical Industry Fellowships, Purdue University College of Pharmacy, Rutgers Institute for Pharmaceutical Industry Fellowships (RPIF), Saint Joseph’s University, University of North Carolina Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics (UNC, DPET), and University of Southern California School of Pharmacy (USC School of Pharmacy).

AIFA sees this respect for candidate choice as a common aspect of the Program culture of each member institution. AIFA hopes that other academic and non-academic Fellowship Programs will respect this timeline.

Fellowship Programs interested in joining AIFA should contact any of the member institutions above via their Fellowship Program websites.

We are pleased to announce that Chapman University has joined our growing network of close to 100 chapters!

Congratulations to student pharmacists at Chapman University! IPhO now connects them to more than 5,000 student pharmacists with similar interests, as well as a national network of hundreds of industry fellows and thousands of industry pharmacists.

Several more schools are in the late stages of filing their chapter applications and will soon join the growing national network.

To start a chapter at your school, contact us here.

For the student benefits of joining IPhO, view the National Student Brochure here!

IPhO recently collected preferences and insights from Class of 2023 IPhO student pharmacist members regarding Fellowship recruiting processes and affordability. These results are being shared widely to help support students and Fellowship employers in preparation for the Fall 2022 Fellowship recruiting season.

As the 2021-22 fellowship year comes to a close, IPhO would like to recognize and thank its National Fellows Council leaders, who have dedicated time and attention to making the year's initiatives incredibly successful.

Congratulations to the following leads and committee members, who are completing their fellowships and accepting full-time industry roles.

As we wrap up the 2021-2022 school year, IPhO is pleased to announce the 2022-2023 National Student Officers! They will continue the beneficial work done by this year's group and IPhO is looking forward to kicking off the new term with them in the coming months. We are starting with 95 IPhO student chapters (and counting)!

Congratulations and welcome to the following student leaders!

The 2021-22 student leadership term has been incredibly productive and exciting for our IPhO National Student Officers (NSOs) and Regional Student Officers (RSOs). We want to take a moment to thank them for their numerous accomplishments. These leaders worked tirelessly to ensure that all IPhO student pharmacists were well informed about the resources and tools available to them.

Co-Authored By: Rebecca Zhang & Nina Teo

On Saturday, April 2, the IPhO chapter at Purdue University hosted the 6th annual Industry Pharmacist Symposium (IPhO Midwest Regional Meeting). This event began at Purdue in 2016 and has become one of the most influential conferences for industry-bound pharmacy students in the Midwest region. This year’s symposium was a great success, with a record-breaking 113 student registrants and 11 different pharmacy schools represented! The theme of the event was “Better Together.”

The IPhO VIP Case Competition focuses on four functional areas of drug development: clinical development, regulatory affairs, medical affairs, and marketing/market access.

Although cross-functional teamwork is encouraged and ultimately necessary for the overall development plan to be credible and congruent, each functional area (“department”) is responsible for a significant portion of the entire competition plan.

Congratulations, California Northstate University College of Pharmacy on your second place showing!

During drug development, industry pharmacists are often faced with many challenges on the road to approval. Therefore, the IPhO VIP Case Competition encourages student pharmacists to practice these critical thinking skills in the form of a Challenge Point.

The Challenge Point presents a drug development obstacle in a unique scenario that requires innovative thinking and solutions. It was announced at the midway point of the competition.

Congratulations to Keck Graduate Institute (KGI) for excelling in all aspects of this competition, including the Challenge Point, and placing first in the 2021-22 IPhO VIP Case Competition!

The Value of Industry Pharmacists (VIP) Case Competition provides student pharmacists with the opportunity to improve analytical, project management, and written and oral presentation skills. Success in this competition is the product of teamwork and commitment.

Managing a project of this scale requires coordination and dedication among team members. The competition was stiff this year and the following three chapters did an outstanding job!

THIS YEAR'S HONORABLE MENTIONS ARE...

The Value of Industry Pharmacists (VIP) Case Competition has attracted more chapter interest than ever before. This competition is a significant undertaking that requires careful coordination and active participation from chapter members.

Strong leadership of the VIP Case Competition team is needed in order to organize processes, adhere to deadlines, and represent the team on the national level. Clearly, this is demonstrated by our third place winner, University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Pharmacy.

CONGRATULATIONS UCSF TEAM!

In September 2021, 65 IPhO student chapters from across the country embarked on a six-month professional journey to create a drug development plan that would bring a theoretical new Alzheimer’s disease (AD) medicine to market.

Now in its 6th year, the VIP Case Competition is one of the most challenging and widely recognized professional development opportunities among student pharmacists who are preparing to pursue a pharmaceutical industry career. At the same time, "the importance of a successful drug launch has never been greater."¹

The median capitalized research and development investment to bring a new drug to market was last estimated at $985.3 million²?—the launch period requires a tremendous amount of financial and human resources. Industry pharmacists play a critical role in many functional areas to contribute to a successful product launch. And for that reason, the VIP Case Competition is an invaluable experience for student participants.

THIS YEAR'S FINAL NOMINEES ARE...

With COVID mandates being lessened around the country, Jerry Silverman, IPhO Senior Vice President of Professional Development and Coaching, had the opportunity on March 7th to visit with several of the IPhO-USC Chapter Officers in Los Angeles (aka Tinseltown).

“It was great to meet with IPhO student leaders in a live setting again, to hear about each of their personal and professional backgrounds and industry interests. I was also able to share with them previews of new programs and resources that IPhO will be introducing this quarter.”

From left to right:
Samin Malek Marzban, 2024, Director of VIP Case Competition; Arghavan Zolfaghari, 2024, Director of Professional Programming; Jerry Silverman, SVP, IPhO; Wenqi Lu, 2023, Director of Communications; Aleeza Sheikh, 2023, Vice President; and Renita Moradian, 2023, President.

Join us on April 5 at 7:30 PM ET as Fellowship Experts Kimberly Le, PharmD and James Alexander, PharmD share key insights and their best tips for pursuing a Fellowship. This event is designed for ALL pharmacy students. Given the required preparation, the earlier you are in your academic career the better!

REGISTER HERE

If you’re looking to break into industry without a fellowship, you are in the right place! IPhO is pleased to provide a list of direct-to-industry job openings for PharmDs, updated frequently! You can search by company and/or position name and view recent postings to optimize your chances of applying early and securing a role. Be sure to sign up for alert emails to be notified each day that new positions are added!

All that's required is an IPhO website account!

ACCESS THE FEED

Melanie Hendricks
South College
Class of 2022

What did you learn as you went through the interview process?
Going through the fellowship interviewing process can be daunting. While it is important to research each company and position you apply to, you should put an equal amount of time into ensuring you know yourself. It is important to practice common questions that will likely be asked, but you do not want to be scripted. The interviews with the most positive results were the ones in which I was able to be myself. In one interview I was asked “How many Taco Bells are there in the United States?”. There was no way I could have prepared for this question!

This is a two-way process. There are interviews that you will attend where you immediately know that this company is probably not the best fit. That is okay! Evaluating the fellowship program is equally as important as evaluating the current fellows and preceptors to determine what your daily work environment may be like.

IPhO is proud to present a regional chapter effort in the promotion of pharmacy, industry, and professionalism.

Details and RSVP links to the FREE SEMINARS, taking place from February 22-24, can be found below!

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22
“Service” Industry (Agency, CRO, Consulting)
5:30 PM ET
REGISTER HERE

Direct-To-Industry Panel: How to Land an Entry-Level Job
7:00 PM ET
REGISTER HERE

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23
LinkedIn Workshop
6:00 PM ET
REGISTER HERE

How to Get an Internship
8:00 PM ET
REGISTER HERE

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24
How to Find Your Best Fit in Industry
7:00 PM ET
REGISTER HERE

Being a Regional Student Officer (RSO) or National Student Officer (NSO) is an opportunity to get involved at the IPhO national level and make a significant contribution to help prepare industry-minded student pharmacists from across the country.

As an RSO or NSO, you will gain valuable knowledge and skills critical to pursuing an industry career including:

• Acquiring industry knowledge through development and participation in IPhO Leadership Development programming
• Enhancing your written and oral communication skills that industry values
• Gaining extensive people and project management experience that will resonate with industry employers
• Networking with fellows, students, and senior leaders within IPhO which allows you to be highly visible and recognized

Interviews and offers will be made on a rolling basis, so don't wait to apply!

APPLY HERE TODAY!

If you're looking to enter industry without a fellowship, don't miss our newly-released direct-to-industry analysis, now available on the IPhO website. From this publication, you'll learn about the roles that were most common for the 276 Class of 2021 graduates who entered industry without a fellowship, along with details about the employers that hired them.

We've shared many times that roughly 80% of pharmacists currently working in industry never completed a fellowship. And we continue to reinforce that statistic because it's important that graduating pharmacy students know that a fellowship is not the only way to launch an industry career!

ACCESS NOW!

Thank you to the publication authors:

• James G. Alexander, PharmD
• Srayant Gayam, PharmD Candidate
• Myra Sheikh, PharmD Candidate
• Sarah Mathre, PharmD Candidate
• Gwang-Wen J. Hu, PharmD Candidate

On January 11, 2022, the IPhO National Fellows Council Student Development Committee hosted a “REVEAL” webinar to announce the VIP Case Competition Challenge Point. The Challenge Point is a scenario that chapters will have to tackle in order to prepare a successful new product launch plan.

Over 70 IPhO chapters are participating in the 2021-22 VIP Case Competition and 170 representatives from those chapters were on the webinar to hear this announcement. Now these chapters have all the information they need in order to sprint to the February 28th finish line!