The mission of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences is to educate students in the foundational scientific principles essential to the provision of exemplary patient-centered care. The Department is committed to life-long learning and the professional growth of students, faculty, and staff through engagement in innovative educational strategies, scholarly activities, and service to the academic and scientific communities, the profession of pharmacy, and society.

The Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences subsumes three specialty areas: pharmaceutics, medicinal chemistry, and natural products/pharmacognosy.

Pharmaceutics is that area of pharmacy associated with the following: designing various dosage forms for delivery of drugs; determining drug storage and stability; and evaluating the effects of administration and formulation factors on the absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion of drugs in humans.

Medicinal chemistry is a science that is unique to pharmacy because it is a hybrid of the physical, chemical, biochemical, analytical, and pharmacologic principles employed in explaining the mechanisms of drug action and drug design. The application of principles associated with medicinal chemistry provides the professional student with a firm basis for their career in pharmacy.

Pharmacognosy is that pharmaceutical science concerned with the biological, chemical, and therapeutic uses of drugs obtained from plants, microbes, and animals.