UCLA Team wins 5th Annual NYU Policy Case Competition

First year MPH students (Ivan Barragan, Dhara Patel, Nicole Pereira, and Gabriel Edwards) and a colleague from the UCLA Nursing PhD program (Adrienne Martinez) won 1st place at the 2018 NYU Policy Case Competition, held over the weekend of April 28 and 29, 2018 at New York University. More than 100 teams submitted policy briefs and the 30 best proposals were advanced to Round 2. During Round 2, UCLA shared their two-pronged strategy for combatting high prescription drug prices. The combination of public-private partnerships and profit sharing was an innovative enough idea that they won the Domestic category and competed in Round 3 as one of only 5 teams left. In the finals, they competed against teams from Columbia, University of Syracuse, University of Washington, and University of Chicago. They withstood very tough questioning from the judges and were awarded first place - a cash prize and a trip to Washington to meet with people involved in pharmaceutical drug policy.