innovate arkansas

Members of BiologicsMD, a University of Arkansas graduate business-plan team and startup, will ring the closing bell at the Nasdaq stock exchange on Friday.

The ceremony can be seen live via www.nasdaq.com at 3 p.m. Central.

The team earned the Nasdaq invite after winning the 27th annual Global Moot Corp Competition - hosted by the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas - on May 9. The victory resulted in $25,000 cash and in-kind awards of more than $110,000 for the team's business plan, which includes a patent-pending, pre-clinical osteoporosis medication trademarked as OsteoFlor.

Team members are MBA students Paul Mlakar, Michael Thomas and Misty Stevens, as well as Robyn Goforth, a research professor in biological sciences who is earning an entrepreneurship certificate, and faculty adviser Carol Reeves. BiologicsMD, an Innovate Arkansas client, also won the Rice University business plan competition in April.

The Moot Corp competition, believed to be the oldest new-venture competition in the world, included 40 teams from 12 countries. To qualify, teams must have been the top winners at other, predesignated competitions.