UA Team Wins at Tri-State Business Plan Competition
by June 8, 2015 12:00 am 111 views
Kordate Solutions Inc., representing the University of Arkansas, earned $30,000 for winning the graduate division at the Donald W. Reynolds Tri-State Collegiate Business Plan Competition in Las Vegas in May.
Kordate Solutions is a pharmaceutical company founded last fall by UA students enrolled in the New Venture Development graduate course in the Sam M. Walton College of Business.
The team’s business plan focuses on developing a drug to treat the cause of Alzheimer’s disease. The plan grew out of the research and intellectual property from the UA lab run by Shannon Servoss, an associate professor of chemical engineering at the university.
“Some of the competition judges had deep medical startup knowledge and were very impressed with how well our students understood the technology, the pharmaceutical market and the regulatory environment,” said Carol Reeves, the team’s faculty adviser and associate vice provost for entrepreneurship at the UA. “The competition this year was extremely stiff, so this was quite an accomplishment.”
Kenny Bierman and Phillip Turner competed for Kordate Solutions in Las Vegas. Both are May graduates of the university. Bierman earned a Master of Business Administration degree in Walton College, and Turner earned a doctorate in chemical engineering in the College of Engineering.
The other members of the team are:
• Vincent Audo, a May executive MBA graduate in Walton College
• Rob Ekwerekwu, a May MBA graduate in Walton College
• Michael O’Brien, a May master of accountancy graduate in Walton College
• Joseph Post, a May MBA graduate in Walton College
Bierman and Turner will continue to develop Kordate Solutions as a startup company, with Bierman as the interim CEO and Turner as the chief scientific officer.
Kordate Solutions qualified for the Tri-State Awards by finishing second in the graduate division in Arkansas’ Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup Collegiate Business Plan Competition in April. The team won a total of $45,000 this spring at business plan competitions.
The eighth annual Donald W. Reynolds Tri-State Award Competition featured first- and second-place winners of the Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup in Arkansas, Nevada and Oklahoma competing for a total cash prize pool of $118,000.
This is the fourth time that a team from the UA won the graduate division at the Tri-State competition. Previous winners were MerchantEyes LLC (2008), Tears of Life (2009) and InnerVision LLC (2010).
Under the guidance of Reeves, UA’s competitive graduate student teams have won more than $2.3 million in cash at state, regional, national and international business plan competitions since 2002.