Leading in Pharma, Investing in Rutgers
Retired pharmaceutical executive Jill DeSimone has established a scholarship to support pharmacy students, sustain others in one of New Jersey’s top professions, and inspire others to do good through philanthropy.
Jill DeSimone was one of the few women to graduate from Northeastern University’s pharmacy program in 1978. Her degree offered a well-defined career path in traditional pharmacy practice.
She chose another one.
Over the next four decades, DeSimone built a distinguished career in executive leadership at some of the nation’s largest pharmaceutical companies, culminating in her role as president of U.S. Merck Oncology. She helped shape commercial strategy, build oncology businesses, and lead the launch of innovative therapies that have benefited patients around the world.
“I went in a slightly different direction than what was expected,” she says. “Back then, you either worked in a community pharmacy or in a hospital, but I decided I could make the greatest impact by using my pharmacy background in the pharmaceutical industry.”
Now, DeSimone is bringing that same pioneering spirit to her philanthropy. Through a gift to Rutgers University, she established a scholarship that she hopes will do more than ease the financial burden for third- and fourth-year pharmacy students.
“Like many people, I use a donor-advised fund as one of the tools to organize my charitable giving, allowing me to make grants to causes I care about over time,” she says. “After speaking to staff at the Rutgers Foundation, I added to my donor-advised fund, which sent my gift to Rutgers. You don’t have to do something complicated. You may have something in place already. The important thing is to get started, and you can add to it over the years.”
She wants her gift to leave a lasting legacy, strengthen the pharmacy profession, support the health of New Jersey’s communities and economy, and inspire others to realize the power of philanthropy.
“I want people to pause for a moment and say, ‘Yes, I’m going to leave some money to my kids, but I want to make sure that this industry continues in a meaningful way,’” she says. “And that’s why I wanted to do it for Rutgers, and with Rutgers, because they have such a great program.”
Though DeSimone grew up in Massachusetts and never attended Rutgers, she has had a longstanding relationship with the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy and its six-year Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) program and its dean, Joseph A. Barone, whom she met in 2003 in her role at Bristol Myers (now Bristol Myers-Squibb), a corporate sponsor for the program.
“He was an innovator, a visionary who recognized there’s more than just retail or hospitals for pharmacy—there’s a whole industry, and we should try to expose people to other paths they can take as PharmD graduates,” she says. “I got involved in the program and believed in what he was trying to do: give people possibilities. And that’s a concept I believe in.”
After retiring from Bristol Myers, she went to work at another company and partnered with Rutgers’ Pharmaceutical Industry Fellowship program, which still exists today, enhancing their pipeline of talent. In her next position, she lobbied to expand the fellowship program’s focus of research and development to the commercial side of the industry.
“I’d seen all the things that Dean Barone and Rutgers had done in the state of New Jersey, so we put together a program that allowed the PharmDs to get some commercial experience, whether it was in marketing or medical science,” she says.
Rutgers was the ideal university to strengthen this relationship between academic training and industry experience. The university is situated near many of the industry’s leading pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and research companies, creating exceptional opportunities for collaboration, innovation, and experiential learning.
Leaving a Legacy
Part of DeSimone’s inspiration to make her gift and include Rutgers in her estate plans after reading about Rutgers law alumnus Jay Gutierrez, who provided for the university in his will.
What struck her about his story, she says, is that “you don’t have to be a billionaire to have a philanthropic mindset and intention.” Also, creating her scholarship, she says, aligns with advice she often gave to new executives she mentored. DeSimone would ask them to think about the person they want to be, about the legacy they want to leave, and reflect on what they are passionate about.
“I’m passionate about cancer, I’m passionate about Rutgers,” she says. “I want to be able to say I was able to help these young kids—somebody who needs some financial support to ease the burden for them to make sure they can finish what they have started and be ready for what is in front of them. And so, when I read that article, I thought, I would like to be able to give back to pharmacists in the pharmacy community too. A scholarship, even a small donation, can make a difference to somebody. That made me realize that I could try to do something significant and then build on it year after year.”
Good for New Jersey
DeSimone knows the challenges students face when forced to choose between working to stay in school or focusing on their studies.
“You want people to not have to make a financial choice,” she says, “to help somebody say, ‘All right, let me continue. I’m close. Let’s go to the finish line.’”
Though Rutgers pharmacy graduates may ultimately live and work out of state, they still help the state of New Jersey by “continuing to be good people giving back, whether they take their health work into the community here in New Jersey or go on to industry,” says DeSimone, who splits her time between Sarasota, Florida, and Point Pleasant, New Jersey.
Her hope is that her scholarship will inspire those who receive it to create their own legacy of philanthropy.
“I hope it’ll make them say, ‘I want to do something good when I’m older, and this is a great way for me to think about helping others,’” she says. “I want people to be happy and feel good and say, ‘I could do something like that.’ And wouldn’t that be terrific?”
Plan Your Legacy
Please consider a gift to Rutgers through estate and gift planning.
