Powering breakthroughs: Partnerships drive discovery at UNC Chapel Hill.

• Position: UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL

Leveraging the power of industry sponsorships, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill creates solutions for emerging challenges. The school attracts over $1 billion in sponsored research funding each year and ranks fifth in the nation for federal research.

Partnerships comprise a growing part of the university's diverse research portfolio. Industry leaders, both globally and locally, are drawn to its strengths in biomedical, health and population sciences, and to its nationally recognized programs in nanotechnology, computer science and big data. The UNCs concentration on practical outcomes and commercially viable solutions is powering breakthroughs in multiple fields.

UNC boasts a research culture that is both highly collaborative and interdisciplinary. To capitalize on these strengths, the university is coalescing resources, facilities and brainpower around six areas of strategic priority. By supporting faculty initiatives which advance these priorities, the school is making early-stage investments at the forefront of innovation.

> Life-Changing Advancements in Targeted Therapeutics

Seeking a prominent university leader in health sciences, Deerfield Management, a private investment firm committed to advancing healthcare, partnered in late 2018 with UNC to create Pinnacle Hill, a $65 million private venture committed to the discovery of new medical technologies that address urgent unmet needs. Through Pinnacle Hill, Deerfield will invest in promising therapeutic research at UNC and apply its significant expertise in drug development to select projects with high potential for commercial application.

Pinnacle Hill will support projects identified by a joint steering committee composed of members from Deerfield as well as leaders from UNC's Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, School of Medicine and Eshelman School of Pharmacy.

> Bonding Business and Science

What began as a collaborative research partnership around chemistry and materials science in 2013 between UNC and Eastman Chemical Company, a materials and specialty additives company based out of Tennessee, has today extended across the enrtire university community. The company has J sponsored research projects in the Gillings School of Global Public Health's Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, in three departments within UNC's College of Arts and Sciences and the Kenan-Flagler Business School. Eastman has also joined forces with UNC's BeAM makerspace...