The ALSAM Foundation has given $20 million to the University of Utah College of Pharmacy to kick off efforts to build a new research and education building, U. officials announced Monday.
Construction of the new building, to be named after L.S. "Sam" Skaggs, is expected to begin in 2009, with completion in 2011. U. officials said they will launch an aggressive campaign to get the additional $50 million needed, relying primarily on private donations.
Just over 40 years ago, Sam Skaggs provided the money to build the current College of Pharmacy building, called L.S. Skaggs Hall, after his own father, who died in 1950. The building bearing the younger Skaggs' name will be south of and connected to the one honoring the elder Skaggs.
The College of Pharmacy was started 60 years ago, with a faculty of three in the top floor of the women's gymnasium, said U. President Michael K. Young, in announcing the gift. He said the new facility would be as important to the college as the existing one has been, "utterly transformative," because many of the challenges are the same as they were when construction began four decades ago: not enough space, so that pharmacy and research labs are scattered across campus, for instance.
Claudia Skaggs Luttrell described her pleasure in being part of the ALSAM Foundation announcement (the foundation's name honors her parents, L.S. "Sam" and Aline Skaggs), because the pharmacy complex will recognize "two great Utah businessmen in a city both loved and called home."
The gift is not just to the U., but to the state, because at least two-thirds of the pharmacists working in Utah are educated here, and 95 percent of those studying in the U. program will stay nearby, said Dr. Lorris Betz, U. senior vice president of health sciences.
The U. College of Pharmacy is ranked No. 2 in the nation by the National Institutes of Health in terms of peer-reviewed research. It has been in the top four every year since 1975, according to college dean John Mauger.
Calling the college's research "truly outstanding," Betz listed a few of its accomplishments, including the fact that every new drug for epilepsy on the market in the past 30 years passed through the college's NIH-sponsored Anticonvulsant Drug Development Program, which has screened more than 30,000 epilepsy medications.
College faculty have started a number of companies, including Sentrx Surgical, Theratec, Macromed and Echelon Biosciences. The college also operates the Utah Poison Control Center, which is credited with taking 50,000 calls each year and saving more than $1 million a year in medical costs.
E-mail: lois@desnews.com