About
Today, tens of millions of people depend on pharmaceuticals to sustain their health, to prevent illnesses from occurring and to treat severe illnesses such as cancer, heart disease and stroke. Although drug therapies can enhance quality of life and cure disease, they can also produce unintended and undesirable effects from minor to life–threatening.
Directed by Charles L. Bennett, M.D., Ph.D., the South Carolina SmartState Center for Medication Safety and Efficacy was created in 2005 to study the effects of prescription and over-the-counter medications, particularly on children and the elderly. The center is also focused on educational and outreach to health care professionals through the Doris Levkoff Meddin Medication Safety Education Program.
Technology Commercialization
Bennett, along with his team at the Medication Safety and Efficacy Center, will be developing technology that has high likelihood of commercialization, looking for ways to make drug information more consumer-friendly and creating new training tools for health care providers.
An international expert in his field, Bennett has first-hand experience with commercializing technology and starting new companies. In 1998, he founded internationally known RADAR (Research on Adverse Drug events And Reports), which investigates and disseminates information about adverse drug and device reactions (ADRs).
During the last decade, the company’s work has identified potentially fatal and previously unreported side effects associated with 43 drugs. He has been funded by several grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and has produced more than 250 publications.