Category: Industry
School’s PhD Program Places Highly in NRC Ratings
September 30, 2010The PhD program in pharmaceutical sciences at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy is highly rated in a new assessment conducted by the National Research Council. The rankings were part of the NRC’s long-anticipated release of assessments for research doctorate programs at 212 U.S. colleges and universities, the first conducted since 1995 and only the third ever undertaken. The NRC evaluated more than 5,000 programs in sixty-two fields. The results were released on September 28. The NRC represents the national academies, which advise the federal government in all areas of science and technology. UNC submitted information about fifty-three programs as … Read more
Singleton Start Up Inks Deal, Attracts Funding
March 11, 2010A new company founded on the research of associate professor Scott Singleton, PhD, hopes to restore or boost the effectiveness of antibiotics that have been steadily losing ground to increasingly resistant bacteria. Synereca Pharmaceuticals was created to address the growing problem of bacterial resistance to current antibiotics. The company aims to develop orally active drugs that support existing antibiotics by inhibiting the enzyme RecA, Singleton says. RecA is the focus of his work and is a key factor in bacterial DNA repair and in the development and transmission of antibiotic resistance. “It’s astounding the diversity of roles played by RecA,” … Read more
Upstream Biosciences Appoints Tropsha to Scientific Advisory Board
June 27, 2008Upstream Biosciences Inc. has appointed Alexander Tropsha, PhD, of the University of North Carolina, chair of the School’s Division of Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products, to the company’s Scientific Advisory Board. Tropsha one of the world’s leading chemoinformatics experts. Chemoinformatics combines chemistry and computer science to accelerate the speed and reduce the cost of discovering drugs to treat disease. Joel L. Bellenson, chief executive officer of Upstream, said Dr. Tropsha brings invaluable knowledge and validation to the company’s drug discovery and drug development programs. “Dr. Tropsha is widely considered to be the leading authority in the world at applying chemoinformatics … Read more
UNC Spin-Off Company Receives $26.5M Commitment
November 16, 2007Oriel Therapeutics, an inhaled drug-delivery company cofounded by UNC School of Pharmacy professor Anthony Hickey, PhD, has received a $26.5 million commitment from a group of venture capital firms. The commitment comes from a group led by New Leaf Partners, a New York venture capital firm. The money will fund the company’s development of drugs that use its patented dry-powder inhaler technology, which was developed at the School. Based in Research Triangle Park, Oriel was founded in 2001 and holds four U.S. patents. It began as a company that develops inhalers for use with other companies’ medicine, but has since … Read more
Sleath Appointed to FDA Risk Communication Advisory Committee
October 11, 2007Betsy Sleath, PhD, an associate professor at the UNC School of Pharmacy, has received a three-year appointment to the Food and Drug Administration Risk Communication Advisory Committee. The committee was formed in June 2007 to advise the agency on ways to improve communication with the public about the risks and benefits of FDA-regulated products. The establishment of the advisory committee was one of the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine’s 2006 report, “The Future of Drug Safety: Promoting and Protecting the Health of the Public.” The committee’s responsibilities include helping the FDA better understand the public’s communication needs and priorities, … Read more
UNC Spin-off Licenses Technology to Drug Development Company
December 14, 2006Qualyst, a company created based on discoveries made at the UNC School of Pharmacy, announced that Covance Laboratories Inc., has licensed the use of Qualyst’s B-CLEAR® system to provide its pharmaceutical and biotechnology sponsors with pharmacokinetic services. B-CLEAR® is a sandwich-cultured hepatocyte system for the in vitro assessment and in vivo prediction of critical pharmacokinetic properties, including hepatobiliary disposition, hepatic uptake, hepatic accumulation, biliary clearance and drug transport. B-CLEAR® offers research organizations the ability to generate physiologically-relevant data and enable decision making in critical areas related to hepatic transport and adverse drug interactions, helping to avoid costly drug-development challenges and … Read more
Patterson Assists in the Creation of HFSA Guidelines
March 15, 2006Herb Patterson, PharmD, participated in the Heart Failure Society of America committee that developed recently published HFSA guidelines. Patterson was one of only 25 individuals selected from across the country to participate in the group.
Brouwer to Participate in International Transporter Working Group
February 24, 2006Kim Brouwer, PhD, has been selected to to participate in a working group of drug transporter biologists. The goal of the working group is to develop standards for transporter assays that can be used experimentally to study drug transporter interactions in the setting of the drug approval process. Drug interactions with transporters in cellular assays are increasingly being studied during pre-clinical drug development. These studies are used in predictive absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (ADME) studies to predict pharmacokinetic properties and to select which drug among a set of candidate drugs to advance to clinical trials. Further, the studies are used … Read more