Gift boosts pharmacy research

A $1.5 million grant from the Madison-based Oscar Rennebohm Foundation will help the School of Pharmacy test and develop useful new drugs.

The Rennebohm Foundation’s gift will establish the Lenor Zeeh Pharmaceutical Experiment Station, a facility that will allow UW pharmacy researchers to bring drugs from the discovery stage to formulation.

The station will be located on the fourth floor of the newly completed Rennebohm Hall. Once it opens, the university will become one of only three university-based pharmacy schools in the U.S. to boast an experimental station.

“Very few academic research labs are able to take research and turn it into an actual drug,” says Melvin Weinswig, dean of the School of Pharmacy. “Sometimes, we farm out our projects to pharmaceutical companies too early. This station will bring more dollars to campus investigators, and ensure that we’re not giving away a winner too soon.”

Weinswig expects much of the work that will eventually come out of the experimental station will involve new and revolutionary forms of drug delivery, methods that alleviate patient pain and disease without damaging other parts of the body.

The $1.5 million grant will establish an endowment that will fund the yet-to-be-hired station director’s salary. The station is named in honor of Lenor Zeeh, a 1936 School of Pharmacy graduate and Rennebohm’s Pharmacy executive who dedicated his career to supporting the field.