Grad Students Start a Business Based on Homework

After graduating from the University of Arkansas in 2003, Misty Stevens began working for a startup medical company in Little Rock.

As operations director for the InterveXion Therapeutics LLC, which produces medication to treat drug abusers, she realized that inventors of medical technology sometimes need help running a business.

“They need somebody to translate,” Stevens said. Someone “who can understand both the biology and the business. So I went back to get my MBA for that reason.”

While taking classes at the UA’s Sam M. Walton College of Business, Stevens said the entrepreneurship side opened for her.

As part of the class assignment, Stevens and her classmates, Paul Mlakar, Michael Thomas and Robyn Goforth, had to write a business plan in the fall of 2009. They settled on creating a business plan for osteoporosis medication.

“We evaluated it together and decided that’s the one we wanted to go forward with,” Stevens said.

The business plan turned out to be a hit. The group submitted it in national business plan competitions and won first place twice in February. The plan beat teams from Indiana University, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Illinois at Chicago.