ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The National Community Pharmacists Association and the NCPA Foundation are pleased to announce that teams of pharmacy students from the University of Mississippi, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Washington have been named finalists in the 2026 Good Neighbor Pharmacy NCPA Pruitt-Schutte Student Business Plan Competition. The three teams will present their business plans in a live competition on Saturday, Oct. 3, 2026, at the NCPA Annual Convention in Kansas City. The winning team will be announced on Sunday, Oct. 4, as part of the convention’s First General Session.
“Independent pharmacy is where you have the autonomy and the opportunity to implement clinical programs, lead a team, and engage with your community as you see fit,” says NCPA President Kristen Riddle, PharmD. “There’s flexibility in how you can operate, but having an established business plan to rely on supports better decision-making, more efficiently tracking your progress, and a greater likelihood of success. The students participating in this competition have a head start on being excellent entrepreneurs! I commend all participants for their efforts and wish the finalists the best of luck at the live competition in October.”
Team members from final three schools will compete for the following first, second, and third place awards:
- First Place: $6,000 shared among the presenting team members, in addition to complimentary registration, travel, and lodging to NCPA’s 2027 Multiple Locations Conference this February in Florida.
- Second Place: $4,000 shared among the presenting team members
- Third Place: $2,000 shared among the presenting team members
The Student Business Plan Competition, which is supported by Good Neighbor Pharmacy, Pharmacists Mutual Insurance Company and the NCPA Foundation, is the first national competition of its kind in the pharmacy profession and honors two great champions of independent community pharmacy, the late Neil Pruitt Sr. and the late H. Joseph Schutte. It aims to motivate students in pharmacy school to create a thought-out plan for either purchasing an existing pharmacy or opening a pharmacy from the ground up, and to prepare tomorrow’s pharmacy entrepreneurs for a successful future.
The teams rounding out the top 10, listed alphabetically, are Auburn University; Ohio Northern University; Rutgers University; the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences; the University of Georgia; the University of Missouri-Kansas City; and the University of South Carolina.
The teams’ business plans were graded by independent pharmacy owners, business coaches and consultants, financiers, or community pharmacy practitioners, who must follow a detailed rubric when grading plans. Schools submitting to the competition for the first time receive a plaque for their participation. Each year that a school participates, it will receive a plate commemorating the year of participation to be added to the competition plaque. Teams placing in the top 10 receive a special plate acknowledging this distinction.
