December 11, 2020
A series of fortunate events
When Donna Gutterman was growing up in the Triad area of North Carolina, she didn’t have all the answers about her future.
She did know one thing: Carolina was her school. Period. She worked hard, got good grades and applied for early action. It didn’t hurt that she was also a stellar athlete and earned the University’s first women’s volleyball scholarship under then Coach Beth Miller.
“I always knew I wanted to go to Carolina, even when I was pretty young,” she said. “I didn’t even apply anywhere else — Carolina was where I was supposed to be.” She was accepted and enrolled in the University’s five-year program to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in pharmacy, graduating in 1979.
Why pharmacy? As a teen, Donna worked summers in her hometown community drugstore as a pharmacy assistant, learning the basics of community pharmacy and discovered that the science behind the prescriptions fascinated her.
“I really enjoyed working with people and helping them manage their health and well-being,” she said. “But I found that I also loved the science and wanted to explore other avenues that pharmacy offered – such as research, hospital or commercial pharmacy and the pharmaceutical industry.”
After earning her BS, Donna went straight to Duke University Medical Center as a hospital pharmacist preparing crucial medications for in-patients and those being discharged home. And she kept learning.
“I became really interested in the clinical pharmacists’ work, and I rearranged my schedule so I could attend rounds with the cardiac care team,” she said. “I applied for a clinical pharmacy residency at Duke, but I knew I needed to get my Pharm.D. and my license to do what I really wanted to do.”
So she set off to the University of Kentucky to earn her Pharm.D., where she met and worked with Robert Blouin, Carolina’s current executive vice chancellor and provost and former dean of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. After a second residency at UNC, Donna was recruited to Utah where she helped run a Phase I unit for clinical trials in humans. Then it was off to Austin, Texas, where she helped set up a contract research organization, which would eventually merge with the future PPD (founded by UNC alumnus and pharmacy school namesake Fred Eshelman).
Then it was back to North Carolina thanks to an invitation from GlaxoSmithKline to run a cardiovascular research group for Phase I, II and III clinical trials. She spent more than 18 years there, working her way from associate director of clinical research to vice president of marketing. Along the way she earned her MBA (’98) from UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.
“My years at GSK were some of the best of my career,” Donna said. “I was so lucky…on my very first day I was fortunate enough to work on the migraine medication Imitrex. It’s so rare to work on a project that goes all the way to FDA approval and then to market right out of the gate. It was such an amazing experience and I feel extremely lucky to have been a part of it.”
After that, Donna took her pharmaceutical development experience and business acumen around the world as a global commercial strategist in research and development, followed by stints in U.S. commercial business and lifecycle development as well as in-line product and digital marketing before finally retiring in 2010. She began consulting and founded Onesta Inc., a consulting firm for the pharmaceutical and medical industries that assists with medical marketing, product strategy, digital marketing strategies and electronic health records. She joined Zynerba Pharmaceuticals in 2014 and serves as vice president, medical, overseeing clinical trials for synthetic CBD applications.
Now that her journey has come full circle, Donna attributes her opportunities and success to her pharmacy education at UNC.
“It all started with UNC and my family’s commitment to education,” she said. “My dad was a chemist, and my mother was a travel agent; both instilled in me, my twin sister Debbie and my brother David the importance of education and making the most of it.”
The family is equally committed to giving back and created the Gutterman Family Scholarship in 2014 to support a fourth-year pharmacy student in excellent academic standing. The Gutterman family made a similar gift to the UNC School of Medicine, where David earned his M.D. In 2019, Donna endowed and named a full volleyball scholarship to inspire, champion, and invest in UNC’s female student athletes. Her gift was recognized on the court of Carmichael Auditorium with Dr. Beth Miller during Monogram Day and Volleyball Alumni Weekend.
And in 2020, Donna created a $2 million endowed dean’s discretionary fund to support Dean Angela Kashuba, the first female dean of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. Donna has also served on the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy Board of Visitors and the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy Foundation. For her achievements, dedication and support, Donna was honored with the 2015 Pharmacy Alumni Association Distinguished Service Award.
For Donna, it’s all about paying it forward. “I have been so lucky in my life and career, and I want to help make sure the next generation of pharmacy professionals have incredible opportunities and realize all the different options pharmacy offers,” she said. “Community, clinical, research, hospital, commercial/global avenues are all open to pharmacy graduates. I’m living proof and I’m so lucky!”
Story by Hope Baptiste, Pharmacy Alumni Association
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