Charles Sturt University (CSU) pharmacy student Mr Jamie Pisani is making the most of the last few months of his degree by taking out two national awards in Melbourne over the week end.

Mr Pisani was part of a three-member CSU and University of Canberra team to win the Pharmacy Guild of Australia National Student Business Plan Competition in Melbourne on Saturday 13 September. The Competition is open to all pharmacy students in Australia.

The team of Mr Pisani and Ms Jessica Cahill, and Ms Cyd Soriano - both from University of Canberra - won with the fictitious 'Primelink Pharmacy' and two programs; one provided telehealth services to patients aged over 65 and another was a Sun Care app to reduce skin cancer.

The students had to produce innovative business plans and progress through quarter and semi finals over the past four months to make a live pitch to judges at the Guild's Pharmacy Business Network (PBN) 2014 conference in Melbourne.

An initiative of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, the annual competition aims to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship amongst pharmacy students - the future owners of Australia's community pharmacies.

Mr Pisani, from Callala Bay on the NSW South Coast, also won the Guild Intern Training Program (Guild ITP) National Student Essay Competition with the $2 000 scholarship prize awarded at the PBN2014 on Friday 12 September.

The essay will be published in the Guild's annual summary publication, Pharmacy Review 2014.

Mr Pisani said, "It was very humbling to with both the Student Business Plan and Student Essay Competitions over the week end.

"In the essay, I focused a lot on rural health and rural pharmacy.

"The business plan was a lot of hard work over the last six months. The quality of the other finalist teams was phenomenal and it definitely was not an easy victory.

"I would encourage all students at Charles Sturt University who can participate in the competition do so in the 2015," said Mr Pisani.

Pharmacy program leader at CSU Mr George John said, "This win is a great testament to the quality of the combined team and the pharmacy program at Charles Sturt University.

"It is also a testament our focus on business management skills in the Bachelor of Pharmacy. 

"This is further demonstrated by the steady increase in the number of Charles Sturt University graduates starting/ buying into a pharmacy business as junior partners in just two to three years after graduation. The normal trend is five years or more after graduation.

Ahead of his graduation from CSU in Wagga Wagga in December, Mr Pisani is a finalist in the Pharmacy Student of the Year competition at the Pharmacy Australia Congress (PAC14) in Canberra from Friday 10 October.

The Bachelor of Pharmacy program is a four-year degree in the School of Biomedical Sciences at CSU in Orange and Wagga Wagga.