James Cloyd III, PharmD

Dr. James Cloyd is a Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor, the Lawrence C. Weaver Endowed Chair in Orphan Drug Development, and Director of the Center for Orphan Drug Research at the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy.

He earned his BS in pharmacy from Purdue University in 1971. Following 2 years in practice, he entered the combined PharmD/Hospital Pharmacy Residency Program at the University of Kentucky. His research project was the protein binding of phenytoin in newborns. Upon graduation in 1976, he accepted an appointment as an assistant professor in clinical pharmacy with the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy. From 1985-86, he completed a fellowship with Rene Levy, PhD (clinical pharmacokinetics) at the University of Washington. His fellowship project dealt with carbamazepine concentration-dependent auto-induction. In 2005, Dr. Cloyd was appointed the Lawrence C. Weaver Endowed Chair in Orphan Drug Development, at which time he established the Center for Orphan Drug Research. The Center’s mission is the development of orphan drugs for rare, pediatric neurological disorders. He has trained 29 PhD students and post-doctoral fellows, many of whom have pursued a career in clinical pharmacology.

Within the College of Pharmacy, Dr. Cloyd has served as Head of the Department of Pharmacy Practice (1981-96) and Associate Dean for Research (2000-06). His research focuses on the clinical pharmacology of CNS drugs. His research includes laboratory investigations of drug solubility, stability, and pharmacology; pharmacokinetic and efficacy studies in animals; drug safety, bioavailability and pharmacokinetic, pharmacogenomic, drug interaction, and efficacy studies in healthy volunteers and/or patients including children and the elderly. He holds 9 INDs and has served as principal or co-principal investigator for a number of Phase I-Phase III trials, many of which have supported NDA applications. He co-authored the orphan drug application for diazepam rectal gel (Diastat) and was a key leader in the successful development of product. The National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, foundations, and the pharmaceutical industry have funded his research, which has led to125 peer-reviewed publications in major medical and pharmacology journals as well as book chapters on various aspects of CNS drugs.

At the national level, Dr. Cloyd is a member of the NIH NeuroNext Data Safety and Monitoring Board, the editorial board of Veterinary Neurology and Neurosurgery, and the FDA Advisory Committee on Pharmaceutical Science and Clinical Pharmacology. He has served on the several NINDS study sections, the American Epilepsy Society Board of Directors (2009-11), the editorial board of Epilepsia (2014-17), and the editor of the Journal of Rare Diseases (2015-17).

Clinical pharmacology of antiseizure medications and development of orphan drugs for rare neurological disorders

• Lawrence C. Weaver Endowed Chair in Orphan Drug Development
• University of Minnesota Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Award
• J. Kiffin Penry Award for Excellence in Epilepsy Care from the American Epilepsy Society
• Rho Chi Lecture Award
• Summer J. Yaffe Lifetime Achievement Award in Pediatric Pharmacology and Therapeutics
• American Pharmacists Association Tyler Prize for Stimulation of Research

• American College of Clinical Pharmacy
• American Epilepsy Society
• American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy
• American Society of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics

• Clinical pharmacology of CNS drugs