VCU news

Joy Turner
University News Services

Ellen Firkins
VCU School of Pharmacy

Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Pharmacy has received a $100,000 gift from 3M Drug Delivery Systems to establish an endowment in honor of Charles Thiel, co-inventor of the first Metered Dose Inhaler in 1956 at Rikers Laboratory, now 3M.

The endowment celebrates Thiel’s work and marks the 50th anniversary of the commercialization of the pressurized inhaler, or MDI, which revolutionized the treatment of respiratory illness. 3M continues to use the device, which allows asthmatics to take repeated doses of their medicine without refilling.

Thiel changed the inhaler formulation design from one using 50 percent alcohol, which burned patients’ nostrils when administered as a nasal spray, to one using an innovative suspension of the medication in a liquefied gas propellant — a design still in use today. The new design also was more efficient than previous methods at delivering medicine to the lungs.

The Charles G. Thiel award will be presented at each biennial Respiratory Drug Delivery conference held in the United States to scientists who have made significant developments in the science and technologies surrounding respiratory drug delivery.

“The school is pleased that 3M Drug Delivery Systems has partnered with us in this way,” said Dr. Peter Byron, chair of the Department of Pharmaceutics in the VCU School of Pharmacy. “Charles Thiel has been a mentor to so many of us in the field. He is a remarkable scientist and more importantly, a genuine, kind and good man.”

3M Drug Delivery Systems provides inhalation and transdermal drug delivery product development and manufacturing to pharmaceutical and biotech companies. The company has a history of supporting the university and the School of Pharmacy in particular, including a previous $30,000 gift to support renal research.