UMN College of Pharmacy Partners to Meet the Need for Hand Sanitizer

Cross-disciplinary collaboration by colleagues and students in the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy and M Health Fairview has produced more than 1,000 gallons of hand sanitizer for M Health Fairview to help with supply levels in the fight against COVID-19. 

Dr. Vadim J. Gurvich, the associate director of the Institute for Therapeutics Discovery and Development in the College of Pharmacy, scientists from the institute and the Fairview Compounding Pharmacy, run by Landen Sanderson from M Health Fairview, have been sharing resources and manpower to produce and deliver sanitizer to the M Health Fairview health system.

Originally, Sanderson worked with pharmacy students to manufacture 300 gallons at Fairview’s compounding pharmacy. Sanderson and his team went on to create 900 more gallons. After the initial amount, Gurvich and fellow U of M scientists began manufacturing 75 gallons of sanitizer per day at GMP Manufacturing Services on the Twin Cities campus to continue a supply of sanitizer to M Health Fairview, including hospitals and retail pharmacies that were in low-supply. Other health care materials in the works are surface disinfectant wipes, viral transport media and nasal swabs. 

This project is ongoing based on the demand from Fairview and other local hospitals and health care facilities.