Colleges make own medicine to ease research

0 Comments | Philadelphia Inquirer, The, May, 2006 | by Dawn Fallik

The drug lab at the University of Kentucky is developing a cream that lowers cholesterol for an Arizona professor's clinical trial.

The new lab at Purdue University is manufacturing a tuberculosis drug for Eli Lilly & Co.

And the new center at Temple University's School of Pharmacy, which opened last month, is making 316,000 placebos so the University of Pennsylvania can test whether a steroid pill also cures an eye condition.

Across the country, a handful of universities have quietly gone into the drug-manufacturing business. Many offer lower-cost drugs and placebos, hoping to spark more "off-label" studies such as the discovery that Botox not only stops wrinkles but prevents migraines.

"If labs like these can pass muster with the FDA and provide...