U.S. Pharmacopeia CEO to Deliver Hartman Memorial Lecture

Annual event honors late UM pharmacy dean Charles Hartman

Ronald T. Piervincenzi

OXFORD, Miss. – Ronald T. Piervincenzi, CEO of the U.S. Pharmacopeia, will deliver the 2017 Charles W. Hartman Memorial Lecture at the University of Mississippi.

The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is set for 11 a.m. March 3 in the Gertrude C. Ford Center for the Performing Arts. Piervincenzi will discuss “Scientific Stewardship in the Age of Drug Resistance.”

The U.S. Pharmacopeia is a health organization dedicated to creating standards that ensure the quality and safety of food and medicine. The standards it sets are used worldwide, and the organization has facilities on five continents.

USP also works with the U.S. Agency for International Development to fight the harmful influx of substandard and counterfeit medicines in developing countries and around the globe.

“We are very excited to welcome Dr. Piervincenzi to our campus as our 2017 Hartman lecturer,” said David D. Allen, dean of the School of Pharmacy. “His work in improving public health on a global level is extremely important. We’re thrilled that our students will be able to hear him speak and talk with him.”

Piervincenzi earned his master’s and doctoral degrees from Duke University, where he studied biomedical engineering with a focus on protein engineering. 

He is the founder of many nonprofit community service and scientific groups. He serves as board chair for both the Newark Mentoring Movement and the NextStep Translational Research Foundation.

Before his appointment as CEO of USP in February 2014, Piervincenzi was a partner in McKinsey & Company’s global pharmaceuticals and medical products practice. While there, he initiated McKinsey’s global drug safety, medical and regulatory service line.

He later served as vice president in development sciences at Biogen Idec, where he worked to improve technology that addressed multiple sclerosis.

The Hartman Lecture was established at Ole Miss in 1973 to honor the late Charles W. Hartman, who was dean of the pharmacy school from 1961 until his death in 1970. Former lecturers include American Board of Medical Specialties president and CEO Lois Margaret Nora, former Mississippi Gov. William F. Winter and U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran and former U.S. Sen. Trent Lott.