School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences Hosts 2nd Annual Shark Tank App Competition

In early December, the Keck Graduate Institute (KGI) School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences hosted its second annual Shark Tank App Competition for the PHAR 430 course taught by Dr. Armen Simonian.

The team Medicinal Muses won the 2016 competition with its product PharmaSpeed, which is a multifunctional, software-integrated device featuring prescription loading, scanning, transcribing, labeling, and storage capabilities. The product’s mission is to optimize technology to maximize time, improve pharmacy workflow, and enable the pharmacy to focus on patient-centered care.

“We accomplished the main goal of this learning exercise, which was to look at the current state of pharmacy automation and imagine the technologies of the future,” Simonian said. “All of the teams were winners. Every student took the challenge to heart, and they all went above and beyond in their effort to create and promote their ideas. As their instructor, I could not be more proud. The students, again this year, made this event exciting, meaningful, and inspirational.”

The winning six-person team included Danielle Tessier, Kristina Joo, Sun Kim, Shilpa Krishnan, Patricia Sedlock, and Stephanie Truong.

Although only one team walked away victorious, the other 11 competing teams also gained plenty of real-world experience through building and pitching their products to the five competition judges: KGI President Sheldon Schuster, IBM Los Angeles City Manager Chuck Skiko, MedTech Innovator Program Director Kathryn Zavala, and Lab Launch Founder and CEO Llewellyn Cox.

“Being in this school is definitely giving us an edge to see what’s out there and making us very well-rounded pharmacists and individuals,” said Mintra Muanraksa, a member of the Team 4 that pitched a product called RxBand. “This competition also makes us more confident in going out into the working field.”

In addition to the winning team’s PharmaSpeed device, other featured products included:

Team 1 product: On the Spot Rx
Product description: A clinic services kiosk
Mission statement: To enhance the utilization of pharmacy clinical services to improve patient health
Team members: Nabeel Asif, Russle Benson, Megan Babakhanian, Tim Grun, Monique Maison, Keith Suehiro

Team 2 product: Aura
Product description: A respiratory rate detection watch for long-term opioid users such as cancer and chronic pain patients
Mission statement: To prevent harm and potential death due to respiratory depression due to overdosing of opioids.
Team members: Dillon Hui, Ashish Brahmbhatt, Pranav Bhakta, Martha Ramirez, Howraa Alasker, Marcus McClure

Team 3 product: OTCheck
Product description: An application that allows customers to create their own personal health profile including demographics, allergies, medical conditions and current medications
Mission statement: To provide convenient access in choosing the most suitable OTC products for consumers’ symptoms with their own personalized health information.
Team members: Tsovinar Akopyan, Zainab Hameed, Nairi Mrktchian, Ivy Dino, My Nguyen, Joshua Blackmore

Team 4 product: RxBand
Product description: A watch that will improve patient adherence with online provider and family monitoring
Mission statement: To provide simplified technology in the form of a watch to help increase adherence and support patients with online provider and family monitoring.
Team members: Mintra Muanraksa, Tanya Lengvilas, Jasmin Kojasaryan, Mark Lua, Karlie Grate, Lida Choe, Aaron Bohlmann

Team 5 product: MMMeds
Product description: An application that rewards good patient medication adherence by providing discounts for their prescription medications.
Mission statement: To improve healthy by increasing patient medication adherence.
Team members: Conor Moldowan, Emet Medina, Sherryl Chico, Trina Nerow, Jae Chang, Anasheh Navasarkian

Team 6 product: OTC Touch
Product description: A camera scanner that scans front labels or barcodes of OTC medications to give consumers price comparisons and provide a short summary of the directions of use.
Mission statement: To simplify the process of buying over-the-counter products and provide education and knowledge regarding their use.
Team members: Daniel Phan, Marina Girgis, Silvia Byram, Sara Sheik, Melony Medina, Vanessa Luong, Dominic Goria

Team 7 product: EzScribe
Product description: A secure tablet computer that can produce a physical prescription for the patient or electronically send it to a pharmacy of the patient’s choice.
Mission statement: To enhance the safety and quality of the prescribing process.
Team members: Marjan Askari, Haisun Chu, Georgia Hovsepian, Ngoc Duyen Nguyen, Wasien Phungkusol, Hannah Suh

Team 8 product: MedLit
Product description: A customizable and personalized electronic medical bracelet that provides automatic updates of patient health information, medication list, and displays refill reminders.
Mission statement: To unleash the power of innovation and technology to redefine medication management and patient-centered care.
Team members: Julienne Hattar, Peter Tran, William Pao, Ada Vo, Yumin Jeon, Ilona Kravtsova, James Shin

Team 9 product: Guard4U
Product description: An at-home reusable unit dose packaging system that dispenses the right medications into individual packages for the day.
Mission statement: To reduce medication errors and improve medication adherence by simplifying drug regimen organization.
Team members: Kofi Atta-Boateng, Neiloofar Jafari, John Kim, Shellen Li, Dane Osmond, Caroline Yalda

Team 11 product: Vax
Product description: An application for patients to have on their phone, providing a record of immunizations received and reminders of upcoming immunizations.
Mission statement: To improve awareness of immunizations by allowing individuals to take charge and be the voice of their vaccinations.
Team members: Rohit Amarshi, Jessica Tan, Tiffany La, Soufya Zohreh-Kermany, Christopher Cheung, Aram Shim

Team 12 product: Cover Check
Product description: A user-friendly app that allows patients to compare medication cost, coverage, and regarding insurance plans.
Mission statement: To bridge the gap for patients and pharmacy by creating an app that allows them to upload their insurance information and review if their insurance will cover their medications ahead of time.
Team members: Joselino Cabrera, Tungie Williams, Meera Patel, Janet Kang, Rupangi Patel, Julie Nguyen