One thing that truly sets the Rady School apart from other MBA programs is that innovation is a foundation of the experience here and is integrated into every aspect of the school.
Lab to Market (L2M), the Rady School’s signature capstone series, provides MBA students the unique opportunity to develop a business from idea generation to market launch. Students have the option to choose between entrepreneur and corporate tracks, enabling students to craft a more customized MBA experience and benefit from the L2M series for their personal goals, whether that is along the lines of entrepreneurship or climbing the corporate ladder.
This month, full-time and part-time MBA students in the entrepreneur track formally pitched their companies to a panel of experts, consisting of two faculty members and three alumni, who gave them feedback on their ideas. Here is our roundup of each of the teams:
Full-Time MBA Companies
CB Therapeutics
Industry: Biotech
Company Concept: CB Therapeutics has developed a novel process for producing a wide range of cannabinoids, terpenes and other therapeutic compounds found in cannabis that will be non-psychoactive.
Why It Matters: Cannabis plant growth requires large amounts of land, cultivation, and resources. CB Therapeutics patent-pending biosynthetic production platform will be able to produce pure cannabinoids for less than 10% of the cost of plant-based production.
Learn More: http://cbth.org/
Veg
Industry: Technology
Company Concept: Veg makes growing veggies at home super simple by providing smart gardens, seasonal shipments, and cohesive information available on multiple platforms including an app.
Why it Matters: The concept leverages modern technology to reduce the time and energy it takes to grow at home.
China Financial Services
Industry: Financial Services
Company Concept: China Financial Services provides a new investment tool unique to the Chinese investment market, with access to historical data to make it easier to analyze the Chinese stock market.
Why it Matters: This tool would enable individual investors with limited financial industry experience to rely more on historical transaction data and less on price trends, enabling them to make better financial decisions.
Trivci
Industry: Technology
Company Concept: Trivici is an itinerary organization app tailored for group travelers that facilitates the organization and planning of holiday trips – utilizing social media to create a community of travelers that sparks innovation in travel styles.
Why it Matters: Trivci compiles traveler planning needs from start to finish in a single app.
Apollo Mail
Industry: Technology
Company Concept: Apollo Mail optimizes the email experience by converting email threads to the SMS layout as well as integration of additional services such as cloud storage, calendars and note taking applications.
Why it Matters: Apollo Mail aims to make email via smartphone as productive and efficient as email via a desktop computer.
Part-Time Weekend MBA Companies
Diabetes Educators
Industry: Education/Technology
Company Concept: Diabetes Educators offers a gamification to promote critical thinking for type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) preteens and adolescents to educate new users on managing their disease and achieving optimal glycemic control through the use of their insulin pump.
Why it Matters: The game could potentially reduce the amount of current adverse events (AE) which occur in over 40% T1DM pump users per year, along with their expensive and devastating consequences.
Neighborhood Garden
Industry: Childcare
Company Concept: Neighborhood Garden is a community-driven, restaurant-like establishment that parents can go to with their children and have an enjoyable dinner for adults while their children are actively engaged.
Why it Matters: Neighborhood Garden offers a going-out experience with a focus on children and community, alleviating the headache that parents sometimes face taking their children to a restaurant.
VisiCELL
Industry: Technology
Company Concept: VisiCELL offers a clinically applicable, non-toxic stem-cell labeling solution that is readily internalized into cells and easily detected through an MRI in living organisms.
Why it Matters: This solution would enable a more successful and swiftly progress the right therapeutic candidates into late clinical trials, optimizing stem cell development pipelines and accelerating the time to market for the movement of the right cell therapy for patients from pre-clinical into clinical trials.
AirCourse
Industry: Technology
Company Concept: AirCourse will employ a top notch supply chain solution to help revolutionize the airport food experience.
Why it Matters: AirCourse would leverage innovation and technology to help alleviate the stress of finding quality food in airports.
Lauren Herr is the Social Media Manager for the Rady School. In her free time she can be found snapping landscape pictures and taking advantage of San Diego’s amazing beaches and coffee shops.
Last month, Rady School Professor Vish Krishnan was invited to lead a panel on the Wall Street Journal’s 
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Andrew LeBlanc (MBA ’15), Co-Founder and CEO of Genrix, discusses how the Rady School’s Lab to Market capstone course series and StartR Accelerator helped him learn to become the entrepreneur his is today.
After completing medical school, Brad Pruitt (MBA ’11) became involved in the clinical trial world and sought an MBA at the Rady School to advance his career on the business side of medicine. Through the Rady School’s Lab to Market capstone course, Pruitt built the foundation for nPruv, which at the time was called iConsent Medical. The premise focused on developing a tablet-based smart informed consent solution that could be used for healthcare procedures and clinical trial enrollment. Pruitt competed in the 2011 UCSD-wide Entrepreneur Challenge business plan competition, taking first place in the both the quick pitch contest and the high-tech healthcare track, winning cash and legal services that helped get nPruv started.
Jeff Benabio, MD (MBA ’15) discusses the impact his Rady MBA made on his career and how he uses the business acumen and emphasis on innovation learned at Rady in his new role as Director of Healthcare Transformation at Kaiser Permanente. In this role, Benabio is accountable for finding and fostering innovations that will truly create value for Kaiser’s patients.
Thank you to all who contributed to the 30 submissions and over 400 votes to make Rady’s first social media contest a success!
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