USC pharmacy school opens compound training lab

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The University of South Carolina’s College of Pharmacy is opening a new, state-of-the-art lab and training program for compounded medications.

Friday’s scheduled opening is set for 3:30 p.m. in the Coker Life Science Building and involves the Kennedy Pharmacy Innovation Center.

At the lab, working pharmacists, students and researchers may train on the latest and safest methods for producing compounded medicines in a sterile environment.

The federal government put new standards on how compounding pharmacies must operate in the wake of a 2012 outbreak of fungal meningitis that killed 64 people and sickened 750 nationwide.

The outbreak from contaminated steroid pain injections was traced to a now-closed compounding pharmacy in Massachusetts.