USC College of Pharmacy faculty members continue to be recognized for their research efforts, as Assistant Professor Chengwen Teng, Pharm.D., Ph.D., MS, has been named as a 2023 New Investigator by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy.
The AACP provides seed funding to assist early-career pharmacy faculty in creating a foundation for future extramural research funding by enabling them to generate preliminary data.
Teng’s research focuses on gathering data in the use of nirmatrelvir-ritonavir, marketed as Paxlovid, the first oral antiviral for the treatment of COVID-19. His research will explore potential concerns about the safety of the medication, which received emergency use authorization, and a full review of the safety profile was not conducted.
This study is innovative because it will be the first to evaluate the safety of nirmatrelvir-ritonavir using a nationally representative database among populations at high risk of being hospitalized ...
As a combination drug, potential drug-drug interactions and drug-disease interactions may be possible. The current drug safety data of nirmatrelvir-ritonavir are extremely limited because the clinical trials had a small sample size, strict exclusion and inclusion criteria, and thus some serious but rare adverse events may exist but have yet to be identified. Teng will employ the Food and Drug Administration Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS), a publicly available database containing information on adverse drug reactions and medication error reports submitted to the FDA.
“COVID is still ongoing, and we expect many more patients to take Paxlovid. This study is innovative because it will be the first to evaluate the safety of nirmatrelvir-ritonavir using a nationally representative database among populations at high risk of being hospitalized,” says Teng. “The findings will aid clinicians and pharmacists when prescribing nirmatrelvir-ritonavir.”
Teng, who has a passion for using data to solve real world problems in health care, was previously recognized as an ASPIRE grant recipient from the USC Office of the Vice President for Research.
“This will provide more financial support in generating data for future research and larger grants,” he says. “I am grateful to Dr. Kevin Lu as my mentor, and for the support shown by the university and the College of Pharmacy.”