News-Record.com

Wednesday's lead editorial.

Here’s one prescription for what ails the local economy: a Triad pharmacy school.
Both UNCG and High Point University are exploring that possibility and both can make potent cases for their causes.

School officials at HPU already have seen an initial feasibility study. The school also is exploring a nursing program, among other health-related options for professional schools.
For its part, UNCG has submitted a formal proposal to the UNC system and has received letters of support from Moses Cone Health System and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, which also would provide vital clinical internships.

Now, before anyone presumes that these two schools’ pursuit of the same goal means another heated tiff between High Point and Greensboro, plainly and simply, it does not. This news should be viewed not as a competition but as an opportunity to double the chances for success. If either bid is realized, Guilford County would become home to only the fourth pharmacy school in the state. The oldest and most prestigious, at UNC-Chapel Hill, was begun in 1897 and is ranked as high as second in the nation. Campbell and Wingate universities also have established pharmacy schools.

As for the Triad school, wherever it went, it would be a good thing. Pharmacists can earn as much as $125,000 — plus healthy bonuses — fresh out of school and there’s a staggering demand for their services. A pharmacy school also would enhance the academic profile of any institution fortunate enough and able to establish one.

The research potential is enormous. UNC-Chapel Hill in 2007 started a Center for Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery to search for chemical compounds that can treat defective genes. The pharmacy school there is partnering in that effort with UNC’s chemistry department, medical school and Lineberger Cancer Center. There’s no reason similar initiatives couldn’t take root here.

But what’s in it for the rest of us, who are neither connected to the schools nor in the market for a pharmacy degree?

Schools of pharmacy can attract businesses, especially health-related industries. In addition, the Triad’s image would benefit significantly from another professional school that trains skilled, highly paid workers, especially in a health-related field.

Meanwhile, UNCG and High Point University each is uniquely poised for this kind of quantum leap. Under the charismatic leadership of its president, Nido Qubein, HPU has undergone a spiritual and physical transformation and has raised record amounts of money. With an impressive new chancellor, Linda Brady, set to succeed Patricia Sullivan in August, UNCG already is establishing research campuses with N.C. A&T, including a Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering.

In other words, if either institution should win this opportunity, we’ll all win. Best wishes to them both.