Posted on November 6, 2008

Rutgers Pharmacy School Receives $5 Million Pledge for Fellowships

PPD Inc., a global contract research organization, has announced that the foundation established by its board chair, Dr. Ernest Mario, has pledged $5 million to the Rutgers University Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

The gift from the Mario Family Foundation will support graduate fellowships at the school, which also received $5 million from Mario and his wife, Millie, in 2001. At that time, the school was renamed for Mario, who graduated in 1961.

"PPD CEO Fred Eshelman and I are fortunate to have the pharmacy schools we attended named in our honor — Fred at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and I at Rutgers," said Mario. "Thanks to the success of PPD and the hard work of its more than 10,500 employees globally, Fred and I have been given the opportunity to support pharmacy education and to encourage the continued health of our profession in a concrete and lasting way."