Category: Industry
School Wins TBJ Life Sciences Award for Chemo-Cleaning Wipe
May 22, 2015The UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy received a 2015 BDO Life Sciences Award from the Triangle Business Journal on May 21 in the category of outstanding research university. The School won for the work of William Zamboni, PharmD, PhD, and Stephen Eckel, PharmD, MHA, in developing wipe kits that detect and remove hazardous residue left on surfaces from the preparation of chemotherapy drugs. Eckel, a leading expert on the issue of chemotherapy contamination in the workplace, says studies have found that people who prepare and administer chemotherapy drugs are at risk of developing complications from exposure to those drugs. Despite … Read more
Kashuba to Play Role in New UNC-GSK Partnership to Accelerate Search for HIV Cure
May 11, 2015The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a leading global public research university with significant expertise in HIV basic and clinical research, and GSK, a global, research-based pharmaceutical and health-care company with a legacy of success in developing treatments for HIV, today announced the creation of the dedicated HIV Cure center and a jointly owned new company that will focus on discovering a cure for HIV/AIDS. This unique public-private partnership will redefine the traditional way of conducting research and create a new model to seek the breakthroughs needed to tackle an extraordinarily challenging global health issue. The HIV Cure … Read more
NC-Based Collaboration Takes on Medicine-Management Challenge
November 4, 2014The affiliated companies of Community Care of North Carolina, Inc., along with GlaxoSmithKline and the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy intend to develop, implement, and test new approaches to care delivery with the goal of helping lower health-care costs through better use of medicines. While the health-care sector continues to evolve into a system focused on rewarding quality of care, it has yet to master one of the most influential factors affecting our nation’s health: medication management. “There is a clear need to improve the effectiveness and safety of medication use if we are to significantly improve health-care quality in … Read more
Infographic: Paying a Pharmacist’s Salary with Wellness Visits
October 20, 2014Wellness Visits Pay the Way for Pharmacists in Medical Practices
October 20, 2014By conducting 1,070 Medicare annual wellness visits a year, pharmacists in medical practices could cover for the cost of their salaries while using only 40 percent of their time. Wellness visits were created in 2011 as part of the Affordable Care Act. In 2013, only 11 percent of eligible patients nationally actually use their wellness visit benefit. The UNC faculty pharmacists conducting wellness visits in an Asheville clinic are on track to see 60 percent of eligible patients come in this year thanks to special efforts to boost participation. Physicians seeking a way to pay for the expertise of a … Read more
Video: How Medical Practices Can Afford a Pharmacist
October 17, 2014Irene Park, PharmD; Courtenay Wilson, PharmD; and Lisa Ray, MD; discuss using Medicare annual wellness visits to cover a pharmacist’s salary in a medical practice. Depending on the size of the practice, allowing pharmacists to conduct these visits can generate enough revenue to cover their salaries. (READ MORE) https://youtu.be/TQj90FeL6L4
PhD Alum’s Review Informs FDA Recommendation on Brisdelle
September 24, 2013A literature review published in The Oncologist by Dan Hertz, PharmD, PhD, a recent graduate of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, and his PhD adviser, Howard McLeod, PharmD, helped inform the Food and Drug Administration’s recommendations regarding a potential interaction between the new menopause drug Brisdelle and the breast cancer drug tamoxifen. Brisdelle, approved by the FDA on June 28, is the first nonhormonal treatment in the United States for moderate to severe hot flashes and night sweats associated with menopause. It contains paroxetine, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) that inhibits the enzyme CYP2D6. This could be problematic for … Read more
School Spinoff Creates Moist Wipes for Chemotherapy Contamination
February 13, 2013ChemoGLO LLC, a spinoff company founded by two faculty members at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, has developed Hazardous Drug Clean—or HDClean—a set of towlettes that removes contamination of hazardous drugs on surfaces. The company has signed a licensing agreement with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for the technology and will start offering HDClean in February. Stephen Eckel, PharmD, and William Zamboni, PharmD, PhD, cofounders of ChemoGLO, say each packet of HDClean has two towlettes, each containing a novel mixture. When used in sequence, the towlettes can remove all detectable anticancer drug contamination commonly found on … Read more
School Spinoff NeuroGate Receives $250,000 Grant
January 8, 2013NeuroGate Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical spinoff company founded by UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy professor Harold Kohn, PhD, has received a $250,000 Small Business Technology Transfer grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Founded in 2011, Neurogate has developed novel, patentable compounds for the treatment of neuropathic pain and epilepsy. Kohn says the compounds under development are highly potent in established animal models and have a novel combination of actions on sodium channels that prevent neuronal hyperexcitability, which is the hallmark of signaling in seizures and neuropathic pain. “This grant will permit us to complete our structure-activity relationship … Read more
Pharmaceutical Startups Picked for Investors Showcase
November 1, 2012Qualiber Inc. and Capture Pharmaceuticals, two pharmaceutical startup companies founded by faculty members at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, have been invited to present in the University Startups Showcase. The event will connect the best university startup companies, as nominated by the country’s major research universities, to leading venture capitalists, angel investors, strategic investors, and SBIR program managers. Qualiber was founded in 2010 by Leaf Huang, PhD, a Fred Eshelman Distinguished Professor in the School’s Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics. The company aims to develop a drug-delivery system based on one of Huang’s inventions—a nanoparticle that contains a drug stored … Read more