UNC recently celebrated a new partnership with Deerfield Management, a healthcare investment management firm.

Deerfield committed $65 million of targeted funding to create Pinnacle Hill, LLC, a company seeking to discover new therapies for patients with unmet medical needs.

Associate Director of the Eshelman Institute for Innovation Kay Wagner says Pinnacle Hill will provide yet another avenue for UNC research to make a practical impact on the medical field.

“It’s important to understand that it takes many years and a lot of funding to move from a laboratory realization to something that is going to actually practically impact North Carolina citizens and beyond,” says Wagner.

The partnership seeks to take UNC’s world-renowned research and pair it with Deerfield’s funding and drug-related expertise to accelerate early-stage research that could improve healthcare worldwide.

While Pinnacle Hill will focus strictly on therapeutic medical research, Wagner believes their presence at UNC could lead to advancements in other areas of healthcare as well.

“This is a firm that invests in all types of healthcare, so the fact that they’re here and the fact that they’re going to be active on our campus gives them the opportunity and gives us the opportunity to explore other relationships with them and other funding mechanisms for other things that we’re doing,” says Wagner.

UNC conducts more than $1 billion in research activity annually.

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