Research Pharmacy

RESEARCH PHARMACY SHARED RESOURCE PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Cancer clinical trials advance treatment paradigms by testing agents for potentially greater efficacy or lesser toxicity. The Research Pharmacy shared resource provides expertise in investigational and commercially available cancer therapeutic agents and ensures a uniformly high standard of safe, accurate treatment for CINJ patients with cancer participating in clinical trials; these services are crucial to one of the central strategic initiatives of the cancer center: high quality, innovative translational research. The Research Pharmacy shared resource of Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey (CINJ) is a Cancer Center managed shared resource whose purpose is to support CINJ members who conduct rigorously reviewed research with investigational agents in human subjects by providing an efficient, centralized service of extraordinary quality. Since the last CCSG submission, Research Pharmacy is increasingly called upon for consultation in the planning of clinical projects. CINJ investigators seek advice on issues regarding drug interactions, drug sequencing for multi-agent trials, dose modifications, formulation of compounds, identification of compounds for use, and consultations regarding Investigational New Drug (IND) applications. Additionally, our Informatics Pharmacist performs various data mining of our electronic medical record (EMR) to assist investigators in selecting and modeling clinical trials based on our patient population. These efforts are guided by policies and procedures ensuring compliance with HIPAA and institutional review board (IRB) requirements.