2025 P&T Competition

The AMCP Foundation National Student Pharmacist Pharmacy & Therapeutics (P&T) Competition is designed to provide an immersive experience in the skills necessary for effective formulary review and management.

The National P&T Competition is a team event. P&T Competition teams work together as if preparing for—and presenting to—a mock P&T Committee. 

All student pharmacists seeking to participate in the National P&T Competition are expected to have a thorough knowledge of all competition deadlines, rules, requirements, and procedures.

AMCP Foundation encourages all interested students and Advisors to download and read the current Guide to the P&T Competition.

AMCP Foundation communicates important P&T Competition news and information primarily via an email newsletter. The newsletter is sent on an approximately weekly basis beginning in September.

Sign Up for Competition News

If you sign up for the newsletter and do not receive any issues, you may need to ask your IT department to “allowlist” Mailchimp delivery servers.

Each pharmacy school/college must designate one student Competition Coordinator to serve as the primary contact person for all competing teams at the pharmacy school/college.

The student Competition Coordinator is responsible for disseminating important P&T Competition materials (e.g., the Case Study and Team Assignments document and the monograph template) to all competing teams and keeping them informed about P&T Competition news.

The student Competition Coordinator is also responsible for forwarding questions from individual teams or team members to AMCP Foundation. Responses to questions must be shared with all teams and team members so as not to advantage or disadvantage any one team.

Importantly, the student Competition Coordinator is ultimately responsible for ensuring that the school’s complete entry to the National P&T Competition is uploaded to the online portal by the stated entry deadline.

Each pharmacy school/college must designate at least one P&T Competition Advisor. 

The Advisor for the P&T Competition typically is the AMCP Student Pharmacist Chapter Faculty Advisor or another faculty member. It is permissible to have a competition Advisor who is not an employee of the pharmacy school/college; however, some institutional affiliation is generally helpful.

The Advisor for the P&T Competition is not required to be an AMCP member. 

P&T Competition teams usually are composed of four (4) student pharmacists. Teams should ideally include students from different years of the pharmacy curriculum.

Teams may compete with fewer than four members, but this is not optimal or recommended.

Teams with four members may designate one (1) additional student to serve as an “alternate” in case any of the official team members are unable to compete for any reason.

Each team should consider designating a captain responsible for meeting all competition deadlines.

AMCP Foundation encourages all students interested in the P&T Competition to join AMCP as a Student Pharmacist member to gain access to valuable resources. All team members entering the National P&T Competition must be active (paid) AMCP Student Pharmacist members.  

Additional information about P&T Competition teams is provided in the Guide to the P&T Competition.

Each accredited pharmacy school/college may enter only one team into the national competition. If more than one team is interested in competing, the school must decide on a single team. 

Many schools conduct a local competition to determine a single winning team. AMCP Foundation is not involved in any way in local competitions, and there is no requirement to conduct a local competition. Whether and how local competitions are conducted is entirely up to the individual pharmacy school/college. Schools are free to conduct local competitions in any way that best uses available resources and accommodates all interested student pharmacists.

A popular approach is to mimic the format of the National P&T Competition by having teams submit a written drug monograph in advance of a live (in-person or virtual) mock P&T Committee presentation supported by PowerPoint slides.

AMCP Foundation provides judging criteria in the form of scoring matrixes to all student Competition Coordinators and P&T Competition Advisors as part of the official competition materials. Schools are free to modify these criteria as desired for local competitions. Many schools choose to use the judging criteria as provided because they reflect the criteria used for the national competition.

Consult the How to Conduct a Local P&T Competition Guide from AMCP's Student Pharmacist Committee for additional insight.

To create an account for your pharmacy school/college in the P&T Competition online portal and register your school’s intention to compete (Steps 2 and 3), you will be asked to provide names and contact information for the student Competition Coordinator, the AMCP Student Pharmacist Chapter President (if applicable), and your competition Advisor(s).

Be sure to have the following information for each of these individuals available before attempting to create an account:

• Correct spelling of first and last names.
• Mobile phone number.
• Email address. For the Competition Coordinator, this must be a school-issued email address with a “.EDU” domain (i.e., name@school.edu).

Visit https://pt.amcpfoundation.org to create one account for your pharmacy school/college in the P&T Competition online portal.

The account should be created using the contact information for the student Competition Coordinator.

The email address for the student Competition Coordinator must be a school-issued email address with a “.EDU” domain (i.e., name@school.edu).

The email address for the student Competition Coordinator also will become the username for the account.

Step-by-step instructions for creating your school account in the P&T Competition portal are provided in the PDF titled “Create Your Account and Register Your School” (see Resources section).

After you successfully create an account in the P&T Competition portal, log back in to register your school’s intention to compete and provide information for your key contacts. You will need the information gathered in Step 1 to complete this step.

Consult the step-by-step instructions for registering your school’s intention to compete and providing information for key contacts provided in the PDF titled “Create Your Account and Register Your School” (see Resources section).

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: On the “School” tab, you must click on either of the “Save Work in Progress” buttons after you select your school — before moving to the next tab — so the portal will generate your Team ID.

To ensure early access to important confidential competition materials and eventual eDossier access by all individual competitors at your pharmacy school/college, be sure to complete this step by October 18, 2024.

You still will be able to register your school’s intention to compete after October 21 (the final registration deadline is November 22, 2024). However, you may miss out on important P&T Competition communications.

After you successfully register your school’s intention to compete, a confirmation email (titled “P&T Competition – Intention to Compete Confirmation”) will be sent to the Competition Coordinator’s email address as entered.

Note that this email includes a 5-digit Team ID that begins with 25 (i.e., 25XXX). This will be your school’s Team ID for the 2025 National P&T Competition.

The Team ID is used to conceal the identity of teams from judges. You will need to incorporate the Team ID into your school’s single entry to the national P&T Competition, as instructed in this year’s Case Study and Team Assignments document.

Be sure to save this email message and/or record your Team ID number and keep it safe!

To gain access to the eDossier for the P&T Competition study drug, student pharmacists participating on P&T Competition teams must create an individual account with FormularyDecisions® (Academia version). Advisors also are eligible to create individual accounts.

Visit https://www.formularydecisions.com and scroll to find the “P&T Competition participants” box. Step-by-step instructions with screenshots are provided in the PDF “How to Register for eDossier Access (Students and Advisors),” available in the Resources section.

Note that you will not be able to create an individual account until after your pharmacy school/college has created an account in the P&T Competition online portal and registered its intention to compete.

IMPORTANT: If you created an individual account for a previous P&T Competition, you still must register for the current year competition. When you access the registration page for P&T Competition participants, you will be directed to update your existing credentials.

Each individual account is evaluated to confirm that the person creating the account qualifies for eDossier access. This process can take up to 3 business days. Be sure to watch for a confirmation email inviting you to activate your account!
 

The P&T Competition case study, team assignments, and judging criteria are shared with the Competition Coordinator and primary Advisor at each participating pharmacy school/college. The Competition Coordinator is responsible for accessing and downloading the case study and all associated materials and sharing them with all participating teams.

Questions from individual teams or team members must be funneled through the Competition Coordinator or Advisor. Individual teams or team members are not permitted to contact AMCP Foundation directly.

Responses to questions must be shared with all teams and team members, so as not to advantage or disadvantage any one team.

The last day for local competitions is January 19, 2025

Each accredited pharmacy school/college may submit only one entry (i.e., enter only one team) to the National P&T Competition. If more than one team is interested in competing, you must decide on a single team.

Many schools conduct a local competition to determine a single winning team. AMCP Foundation is not involved in any way in local competitions, and there is no requirement to conduct a local competition.

If you choose to mimic the format of the national competition, establish a deadline by which all competing teams must submit materials to the local judges. If teams will make live mock P&T Committee presentations as part of a local competition event, the deadline for submitting materials should be at least 1 week before the date of the local competition event (to allow time for scoring). During the live event, allot 30 minutes for each team: 15 minutes for the presentation and 10–15 minutes for judges to pose questions to the team. Be sure to build time into the schedule for wrap up/transition to the next team (approximately 5 minutes).

If an AMCP Student Pharmacist Chapter serves multiple campuses of a pharmacy school/college, the school still may enter only one team into the national competition. In this situation, chapters may hold local competitions on each campus, then ask judges to determine an overall winner.

Additional information about local competitions is provided in the “Guide to the P&T Competition” (available in the Resources section below). The AMCP Student Pharmacist Committee offers “How to Conduct a Local P&T Competition,” available for download at https://www.amcp.org/pt-competition-resources. 
 
 

The deadline for national competition entries is January 20, 2025

Instructions for preparing your entry are provided in the P&T Competition Case Study and Team Assignments document. Be sure to follow these instructions carefully.

Specific instructions for uploading your school’s entry to the P&T Competition online portal will be provided to Competition Coordinators and Advisors.

Entry Phase judging takes place January 24, 2025 to February 3, 2025. The teams that will advance to the Semi-Finals round will be announced no later than Monday, February 10, 2025.