A team of Executive MBA students from Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management has won first place in the MBA Jungle Business Plan Competition, a national competition held recently in New York City.
The team developed a proposal for a start-up company, Organ Transplant Technology, to market a new method for preserving and transporting donor organs. The company would combine a newly developed perfusion solution for preserving transplanted organs with a transportable compressed-air driven perfusion system to replace the currently used method of transporting organs on ice in coolers.
Members of the winning team, all of whom graduate May 9 from Vanderbilt’s Executive MBA program, are Dr. Ravi Chari, professor of surgery and cancer biology and chief of the division of hepatobiliary surgery and liver transplantation at Vanderbilt; Ted Klee, vice president of Square D/Schneider Electric Company; Andrew Bordas, director, warehouse management systems, Ingram Book; and Fernando Sanchez, chief financial officer of Gibson Guitar. Clayton Knox, a Vanderbilt medical student, also assisted the team with the project.
The demand for donor organs and effective organ preservation solutions is huge and growing, Chari said. "As surgeons, we are pressed to use more organs, as the waiting list is growing and patients receiving the transplants are sicker. But this has forced us to consider organs from all donors, not just the ‘perfect’ donor. Therefore, it is critical that the organs are optimally recovered and stored, otherwise the organ is not usable," he said.
The new perfusion solution, developed by Thomas Van Gulik of the University of Amsterdam, helps rejuvenate the organ while the air-drive system circulates the solution throughout the organ to renew nutrients to the cells. "This would not only better preserve the organs but actually increase our ability to use more so-called marginal donors, without compromising overall outcomes," Chari said.
Only 30,000 organs are transplanted each year from a waiting list of 90,000, due in part to low donor levels and organ recovery rates of only 65 percent, Chari said.
The team’s plan would offer a more effective medical solution to recover and preserve harvested organs, he said.
The MBA Jungle Business Plan Challenge is a national competition that encourages graduate students in business management to pursue entrepreneurial ventures and develop high-growth businesses. The challenge provides a forum in which qualifying participants may present their ideas to the investment community and potentially earn funding for their ventures. The sponsor, Jungle Media Group, is a media company targeted to young professionals pursuing careers in business and technology.
Winning the challenge helps teams procure needed capital venture funds to further develop business plans, pay legal fees and, in this case, pursue licensing rights, research and development funding and FDA approval, Chari said.
Bruce Lynskey, clinical professor of management, said the concept for Organ Transplant Technology began as coursework for "Creating and Launching the Venture" during the fall semester. The team began to realize their assignment might turn into a potent idea from the reaction of a panel of six venture capital judges who were invited to the class.
"Each judge had $5 million in play money to invest across 10 new business concepts presented by the teams in the course," Lynskey said. "After deliberations, each judge had to stand up and explain where he was investing his $5 million and why he was doing so. (This group) received significant investments from all six judges along with strong words of encouragement. I think that event planted the seed in their minds."
The team entered the Wharton business plan competition earlier this year and made it to the semi-final round, receiving strong positive feedback from those judges as well.
"One judge described them as the best team they had ever seen at concept stage. That experience made them decide that they really wanted to give the venture a shot," Lynskey said. "The rest of the story will eventually be history."
The team members were not known to each other until the first week of the Executive MBA program, when study groups are selected based on the combination of skills each person brings to the team. The study groups remain intact during the 21 months of the Executive MBA program.
The Vanderbilt Executive MBA program is designed specifically for established professionals already in or approaching senior leadership positions in their organizations. While remaining in their current positions, the students complete their coursework on alternating weekends.
Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management is ranked as a top institution by BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report, Financial Times and Forbes. For more information about Owen, visit www.owen.vanderbilt.edu.
Media Contact: Jennifer Johnston (615) 322-NEWS
Jennifer.johnston@vanderbilt.edu