An Investment in Hands-On Research
The Perrigo Company, a pharmaceutical and nutritional products manufacturer based in Allegan, MI, with additional support from the UM College for Literature, Science and the Arts, has sponsored 15 students from colleges around Michigan for summer fellowships at LSI.
By Mike Jandernoa
As a proud UM alum and member of the business community building the Life Sciences industry in Michigan, I was delighted to play a role as the former CEO and Chair of Perrigo in helping to provide an endowment to allow students an in-state science experience at LSI.
The 10-week program puts undergraduate students into the laboratories of the Life Sciences Institute at UM. They will learn from faculty, post-doctoral fellows and graduate students in the latest open lab design, where scientists work together in a common space and share equipment and get the opportunity to intern at Perrigo.
We want to encourage our state’s highly talented undergraduate students to continue their pursuit of careers in the life sciences in-state. And as Perrigo is expanding into the generic prescription market and other life science start ups are emerging, we need to foster growth and talent in student scientists to experience the latest advances in science, and LSI is the place to do that.
Our hope is that hands-on exposure will demonstrate some of the great opportunities for pursuing meaningful careers in the life sciences that exist here with the ever-changing global environment of today and especially with the current economic crisis in the state of Michigan and transition from the auto reliance.
UM provides a thorough scientific training, which compliments Perrigo’s real life scientific careers. Putting them together makes sense.
When we looked at ways for Perrigo to invest in UM in a direct way, we saw a gap in terms of talent and a need for finding that talent. Because I have served on the Life Sciences Corridor board and the ensuing Strategic Economic Investment Committee, I’ve been committed to helping create opportunities for more American students to compete globally. Today it is more important than ever.
Our hope is that we can help create passion in young students to become scientists through hands-on exposure so that they want to make it their life’s work. I hope this Perrigo Fellowship helps feed that passion.
It is a special opportunity for Perrigo and for me to be given a chance to make a difference in the lives of undergraduate students. At LSI, there is a new way of doing science, and it’s the way of the future.
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Mike is the former CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors at Perrigo Company and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in business and accounting from the University of Michigan. He is a co-chair of The Michigan Difference campaign, and with his wife Susan established the Michael and Susan Jandernoa Life Sciences Initiative at the Business School. He is a member of the board of directors of Steelcase Inc., Fifth Third Bank and serves on various other business and corporate advisory boards, as well as numerous community boards and committees.
