On May 21, 2008, the North Carolina School of Pharmacy was renamed the Eshelman School of Pharmacy in honor of Fred Eshelman, CEO and founder of Wilmington-based PPD and a member of the Class of 1972. In 2003, Eshelman pledged $20 million to the School, the third largest single commitment in the Universityﾒs history and the largest ever made to a pharmacy school in the United States.

In 2007, Eshelman committed another $10 million to the School to support educational initiatives and cancer research, and in 2014 a $100 million commitment used to found a center dedicated to accelerating collaborative innovations. To date, Eshelman’s total support of the School has amounted to approximately $133 million.