PharmD Student Selected for 10th Anniversary Cohort of UMB President’s Entrepreneurial Fellowship Program

Third-year Doctor of Pharmacy student one of 11 fellows who will be paired with real-world startup companies and UMB investigators, gaining hands-on experience advancing commercially promising technologies and early-stage ventures.

By Becky Ceraul
November 25, 2024

Yassin Kadhim Ismaeel, a third-year Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) student at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy (UMSOP), has been selected as a University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) President’s Entrepreneurial Fellow (PEF). The competitive fellowship, which pairs students with real-world startup companies and investigators who are commercializing UMB technologies, is celebrating its 10th anniversary with the 2024-25 academic year.

The fellows represent UMB’s Schools of Law, Medicine, and Pharmacy, as well as the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park.

“I applied to the President’s Entrepreneurial Fellowship because I am passionate about advancing health care through innovation and entrepreneurship,” said Ismaeel. “PEF offers a unique opportunity to work on real-world business ventures, and I wanted to immerse myself in an environment where I could gain hands-on experience in commercializing health care technologies.”

For the next few months, the PEFs will work on interdisciplinary teams with UMB inventors, life science entrepreneurs, and UM Ventures, Baltimore staff on projects for UM Ventures companies or technologies that are in the process of becoming companies.

By providing a hands-on experience, the PEF program helps the fellows develop valuable, real-world skills and unique insight into early-stage business ventures. Mentorship from the PEF leadership— which includes seasoned biotech executives as well as experienced scientific researchers — UM Ventures, Baltimore staff, inventors, venture partners, and PEF alums ensures the fellows receive a rich experience and helps them build a network to support them as they launch their careers.

“I hope to sharpen my entrepreneurial skills, expand my network within the health care and business sectors, and contribute to impactful projects that can improve patient outcomes,” Ismaeel said of participation in the program.

The PEF program encourages innovation and discovery, giving students an up-close look at working in biotech startup companies. It is open to all UMB students as well as students from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park. Applications to the program are accepted each September.

An interdisciplinary cohort is a core strength of the PEF program. Students often spend most of their time at UMB surrounded by students and faculty in the same discipline. But in the real world, biotech companies employ people from a wide range of backgrounds. The PEF program not only gives students the experience of collaborating with people from different disciplines, but it also helps expose students from non-science backgrounds, such as law, to biotech.

Ismaeel is a member of the Pharmapreneurship® Pathway within UMSOP’s PharmD program. Designed for a select group of qualified and motivated PharmD students, the pathway offers students the opportunity to pursue special interests in innovation, entrepreneurism, and creativity with a high degree of individual attention and coaching by faculty and external advisors. A priority of the pathway is to build upon existing strengths in areas of motivation, independence, and creative problem solving to develop new research study design, drug discovery, modern analytic methods, business and innovative methods in the broad areas of basic pharmaceutical sciences, clinical/translational research, pharmaceutical health services research, outcomes research, as well as create innovative clinical patient care programs and business solutions in health care.

Students in the Pharmapreneurship Pathway conduct original projects with faculty advisors and mentors, and receive individualized counseling about courses, internships, and potential career options. Successful completion of the pathway allows students seeking various career options to distinguish themselves from their peers, and to compete successfully in the pharmaceutical, pharmacy, clinical, and business fields and to develop their skills to possibly start their own businesses.

“Participating in the Pharmapreneurship Pathway has been transformative,” Ismaeel said. “It has equipped me with essential skills in business planning, market analysis, and innovative problem-solving, all within a pharmacy context. This experience has reinforced my desire to bridge pharmacy practice with entrepreneurship and pursue solutions that address unmet needs in patient care.

After pharmacy school, I plan to pursue a clinical pharmacy residency to further refine my expertise in patient care and am also considering opportunities to advance my entrepreneurial ambitions, possibly by working on health care technology ventures or pursuing further studies in pharmaceutical sciences.”

“As his academic advisor and the Pharmapreneurship Pathway coordinator, I am extremely pleased to see Yassin advance his knowledge and skills as a pharmapreneur through the PEF program,” said Magaly Rodriguez de Bittner, PharmD, MS, FAPhA, FNAP, the School of Pharmacy’s Felix Gyi Endowed Memorial Professor in Pharmapreneurship, associate dean for clinical services and practice transformation, and executive director of the Center for Innovative Pharmacy Solutions. “This interprofessional experience will help advance his project and his ability to work with other students. The President’s Entrepreneurial Fellowship is a great complement to UMSOP’s Pharmapreneurship program, and we encourage students to take advantage of it.”

Rana Quraishi, PhD, director of new ventures for UM Ventures, Baltimore, developed the PEF program to help students better understand the realities of working in a biotech startup and show them that it is a viable career path.

“The level of knowledge, education, and skill required for biotech entrepreneurs is greatly increased,” she said. “Biotech companies encounter strict regulation, long development timelines, require large amounts of funding, and face higher risk of failure. It can take years or even decades before a commercially viable product is available for sale or a company is ready for a market exit. It’s not for the faint of heart and takes an enormous amount of determination, grit, and drive. But it can be very rewarding.”