At the URI Distinguished Achievement Award ceremony on Oct. 25, Paul Hastings ’84 received a 2014 Presidential Award for his professional achievements, leadership, and community service. Hastings is chairman and chief executive officer of OncoMed Pharmaceuticals, a leader in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries for more than 20 years.

Hastings has served as president and CEO of QLT, Inc., Axys Pharmaceuticals and LXR Biotechnology, and president of Chiron BioPharma. He also held management positions with Genzyme Corp., including president of Genzyme Therapeutics Worldwide. Today he leads OncoMed Pharmaceuticals, a clinical development-stage biopharmaceutical company in Redwood City, Calif. In 2011 he was the first member of the LGBT community to be awarded URI’s Diversity Award for Lifetime Achievement, and he has been an active supporter of StartOut, which fosters leadership among LGBT entrepreneurs and combats LGBT discrimination in the business world. He lives in San Francisco.

In addition, two College of Pharmacy graduates were recognized with the DAA Dean’s Award. They are:

Anthony Palmieri III ’71, M.S. ’73, Ph.D., associate scholar of pharmaceutics at the University of Florida College of Pharmacy, has achieved distinction as a pharmacist and pharmaceutical scientist, intellectual property expert, editor, organizational leader and historian. He began his professional career as a faculty member at the University of Wyoming, before becoming a patent expert in the pharmaceutical industry. He later joined the University of Florida’s Office of Technology Licensing and its College of Pharmacy, where he is the graduate school coordinator and curator of the College of Pharmacy Museum. A former member of the URI Pharmacy Advisory Council, he is the inventor of a basket dissolution apparatus for suppositories that is widely used, and editor of The Handbook of Pharmaceutical Excipients. He lives in Gainesville, Fla.

Jean-Marie Pflomm Pharm.D. ’96, editor of The Medical Letter, held clinical positions at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in the Bronx, the Arnold and Marie Schwartz College of Pharmacy in Brooklyn, Long Island Jewish Medical Center and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center before turning to pharmaceutical publishing. She also served as a consultant pharmacist to long-term care facilities in New York. A preceptor for doctor of pharmacy students at URI, she served as director of drug information and now editor at The Medical Letter Inc., a nonprofit organization that publishes critical appraisals of new prescription drugs, comparative reviews of previously approved drugs, and reviews of drug classes used to treat common disorders. She lives in Stony Point, N.Y.