On Jan. 31, the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy hosted a delegation from the China Food and Drug Administration.
Thirteen members of the China FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation attended a two-hour symposium at where School faculty presented various topics related to drug discovery and development. Gaoming Wei, the office director of the Department of Social Security in China’s Ministry of Finance, led the delegation of CDE members.
Interim Dean Dhiren Thakker, Ph.D., Ferguson Distinguished Professor, welcomed the group to the School, and Stephen Eckel, Pharm.D., M.H.A., associate dean for global engagement and clinical associate professor, gave an overview of the School’s initiatives in China.
Bob Powell, an adjunct professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics, gave a presentation and led a discussion on the drug approval process in the United States.
Xiaodong Wang, Ph.D., research associate professor and director of medicinal chemistry in the School’s Center for Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery discussed drug discovery and development at UNC-Chapel Hill. Fred Eshelman Distinguished Professor Mike Jay, Ph.D., chair of the Division of Pharmacoengineering and Molecular Pharmaceutics, talked about heavy metals poisoning. He was followed by Kenan Distinguished Professor Kuo-Hsiung Lee, Ph.D., who covered natural products research at the School.
The group closed their visit to UNC-Chapel Hill by meeting with students and touring the pharmacy school.
In addition to their time at the School, the China FDA delegation visited SAS Institute in Cary, IQVIA and the North Carolina Biotechnology Center in Durham, GlaxoSmithKline in Research Triangle Park and North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina.