Located in the well-known and picturesque Guangzhou Higher Education Mega Center, Guangdong Pharmaceutical University (GDPU) is one of the three pharmaceutical universities in China with a history of 50 years, and GDPU is also a popular institution of higher learning. The university is an important base which trains top qualified personnel and administrant cadres in the sciences of pharmacy, hygiene and disease control, and clinical medicine. It is a training center of national registered pharmacists and a legal pharmaceutical unit for CMA measurement and authentication in Guangdong Province. What’s more, it is a multidisciplinary pharmaceutical institute of higher learning, combining medicine and pharmacy, and keeping pharmacy as its priority.
GDPU has a comprehensive educational system offering undergraduate programs, postgraduate programs and continuing education programs The University has been authorized to confer Master’s Degrees and to enroll students from areas of Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and foreign countries.
GDPU consists of 14 schools and departments, which include School of Pharmacy, School of Public Health, School of Clinical Medicine, School of Traditional Chinese Medicine, School of Medical Business, School of Medical Information Engineering, School of Life Science and Biopharmacy, School of Basic Courses, School of Continuing Education, School of Food Science and Engineering, etc. There are 33 majors offering Bachelor’s and College degrees, such as Pharmacy, Preventive Medicine, Pharmaceutical Preparation, Chinese Materia Medica, Biotechnology, Clinical Medicine, and Chemical Engineering & Techniques orientated in 84 specialties. There are 8 primary disciplines offering Master’s programs: Chinese Materia Medica, Pharmaceutics, Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Pharmaceutical Analysis, Internal Medicine, Epidemic and Health Statistics, Pathogenic Biology, Anthropotomy & Histoembryology.
Currently, GDPU employs a faculty of over 1,400 people, including more than 1,000 full time teachers. Professors and associate professors take up 36%, master and doctor degree holders and are over 600, taking up 63%. The number of teachers with doctor degree is 170.
Since its establishment, GDPU attaches great importance to the research and development of science and technology. There are five research institutes at the provincial level and state level: Provincial key laboratory of new dose pattern, provincial key laboratory of promoting medicine by science and technology, key laboratory of modern traditional medicine under the administration of Department of Education of Guangdong Province. Research institute of pharmacy, traditional Chinese medicine development, new drug development and bio-pharmacy, experimental animal centre were all set up at the university. GDPU enjoys a complete teaching and researching system and advantages in the fields of drug research and public health.
In the past three years, GDPU has participated in over 200 provincial and national scientific projects and obtained national new drug certificate, approval of clinical use, a batch of science achievement award, national inventive patent. At the same time, it has actively expanded the cooperation with enterprises and fulfilled many service support and new drug development projects, getting very good social and economic benefits.
Benefited from geographical location, GDPU has been actively developing internal and international academic exchange and collaborations. It has also established friendly intercollegiate relationship with over ten countries and areas, such as Governor State University, The University of Texas, University of Hertford,, University of Liverpool John Moors, Osaka Ziqing Education Group, The University of Queensland, Taiwan Chia Nan University of Pharmacy & Science etc, The university has trained thousands of students for Hong Kong since it conducted joint course program with Hong Kong University in 1997.
Due to the distinguishing specialties, clear strength and good quality of students, the employment rate has been ranked top among all the provincial universities. Since 2002, the employment rate of GDPU has reached 96% averagely. And the graduates enjoy great popularity in employers. It is calculated that the university has trained over 36,000 students, and most of them have become administrative cadres and technical backbone, which is a great contribution to the provincial and national medical development.
