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PHAR 1005: Pharmaceutical Industry

Assignment 2 - Group Project & Presentation

This Assignment Help is designed to help you with your research activities for the Group Project and Presentation.

For this assignment, you are required to:

1.  Develop a Dossier (Written Report) on a particular Drug and a Pharmaceutical Company associated with that product.  Your dossier should include:

  • Product Information
  • Marketing SWOT
  • Intellectual  property & patents

2.  Present the dossier and give a 4 minute Oral Presentation per person on the company and the product

Please refer to the learnonline course site for further assessment instructions

Plan your search

  • Searching for your whole assignment is not very effective
  • Mapping out your search is a good place to start
  • Identify the key concepts in your question or topic
  • You don't need to search for task words
  • Use double quotation marks (" ") to search for two or more words together as a phrase
  • Think about what other words (synonyms and alternative terms) might be used to describe the key concepts
  • You can use acronyms, but you should search for the full terms as well
  • To find fewer results, add different concepts using AND (e.g. rural AND Australia)
  • To find more results, add synonyms or alternative terms, to your search using OR (e.g. "renewable energy" OR solar OR wind)
  • You can change your search as you find more information
  • For more information, read the How to plan your search document

Search Strategies

After watching the above video you can now start by identifying the concepts (main ideas) from your assignment topic prior to searching. Consider alternative words for these concepts which, together with the concept term, become your searchable keywords.

Keywords

Concepts

 Synonyms and alternative concepts
Aspirin

salicylic acid, acetylsalicylic acid
Side-effects, 

reaction, aftereffect, adverse effects, contraindications
Pharmaceutical Industry   

pharmaceutical company, pharmaceutical solutions, pharmaceutical chemist, drug company

Combined Search String with AND / OR/ truncation*/phrase ("word + word")

Search 1

Line 1 aspirin OR "salicylic acid" OR "acetylsalicylic acid"
Connector AND
Line 2 "side effects" OR react* OR aftereffect OR "adverse effects" OR contraindicat*

Search 2

Line 1 aspirin OR "salicylic acid" OR "acetylsalicylic acid"
Connector AND
Line 2 "pharmaceutical industr*" OR "pharmaceutical compan*" OR "pharmaceutical solution*" OR "pharmaceutical chemist" OR "drug compan*"

Databases - Drug Information

The following Databases are a good starting point for finding information about your selected drugs.  For more options, look at the Find Evidence tab at the top of the guide.

Searching for drug information - SciFinder Database

SciFinder is a database that provides access to authoritative source of references, substances and reactions in chemistry and related sciences. Have a look at the training resources below to learn how to search in SciFinder;

Media and other Information Sources

Information about pharmaceutical products and companies can sometimes be found in various media and other information sources.

Patents and Intellectual Property

Your assignment requires you to find information regarding intellectual property such as drug patents.  A patent is a legally enforceable protection on a product, composition or process. A patent allows a person or organisation the exclusive right to commercially exploit the invention for the life of the patent.

The Uni SA Library has a Patents and Standards Guide to help you further understand and research patents, and to guide you in finding patents on specific drugs.

Business Source Ultimate

Business Source Ultimate is a large business database that allows you to access Company Profiles, SWOT Analysis and Market Research Reports.

You can search for both Company Profiles and Company Information.

1. Company Information

Type the name of your Company into the search box and select CO Company Entity

2. Company profiles

To search for MarketLine/Medtrack Company Profiles

1) From the top menu select More and then Company Profile

2) Type in the Company name

3) If there is a market report for your company click on the PDF link to open the report

 

 

Company and Industry Information

Our Company and Industry Guide has more information and recommendations on where to search for Company and Industry information.

Select appropriate references

You should critically evaluate all resources found to determine their appropriateness for your assignment. The video below explains more.

  • Having access to a lot of information can be overwhelming.
  • Evaluating information helps you decide what resources you should use.
  • One technique you can use is the CRAAP test.
  • Currency: How recent is the information? Does it suit your needs?
  • Relevance: Is the information relevant to your assignment?
  • Authority: Who wrote the information? Are they an expert?
  • Accuracy: Is the information accurate? Is it supported by evidence?
  • Purpose: Why was the resource created? Is there any bias?
  • You can use the CRAAP tool to think about these issues when evaluating your resources.

Write your Assignment

The length of the Dossier (Written Report) should be such that there will be a maximum of 2,000 words per student.  The Oral Presentation should be no more than 4 minutes per student.

The Sudent Engagement Unit has guides on how to write specific types of assignments: 

View the Student Engagement Unit's Academic Skills Website for help writing your assignment, or to make an appointment with SEU staff. 

Correctly reference your sources

You must appropriately cite (‘acknowledge’) all references used in your assignment to avoid plagiarism.