The Intersection of Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Each year, more than $200 million is spent on wasted inhalers. Once an inhaler has been used, it simply goes into the trash.

So for six months, a team of students from the Eshelman School of Pharmacy and the Kenan-Flagler Business School developed a project aimed to reduce the cost of wasted inhalers by sterilizing them with UV-C light, allowing an inhaler to be used safely by another patient.

The E(I) Lab Program — an experiential program which teams up graduate students from different disciplines to tackle unmet medical needs to gain first-hand training in prototype development and product design — provided the financial support and access to various experts with the goal of removing barriers to entrepreneurship and innovation the participants.

Read the complete Carolina Story from the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy…

This is story number 87 in the Carolina Stories 225th Anniversary Edition magazine.

The Eshelman Institute for Innovation is made possible by a $100 million gift from Fred Eshelman to accelerate the creation and development of ideas leading to discoveries and transformative changes in education, research and health care. To learn more about the EII’s impact, visit unceii.org/impact.

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