College of Pharmaceutical Sciences

The College of Pharmaceutical Sciences (CPS) is a three-year international Bachelor's programme in drug development with courses at honours level. You will be trained how to discover and develop new drugs for diseases such as cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s. CPS is fully taught in English and therefore open to international students (on average 50% international students, 50% Dutch students in recent years).

Contribute to human health 

There is a great medical need for new drugs. Is it your dream to contribute to the development of these new medicines that could improve the health of many people? Do you like having the freedom to choose your own approach when presented with an assignment? Do you thrive whilst studying in small groups together with other motivated students from different nationalities? If so, studying CPS might be just perfect for you!

Drug development 

At CPS, you will learn what is needed to develop new drugs. You’ll need to consider the possible target for the drug in the body, the structure of active ingredient, the best route of administration of the medicine and how the effectiveness and safety of the new drug should be tested in patients. To develop a new drug many disciplines come together, such as biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences, chemistry and biology.

Challenging educational approach

As a drug designer you need more than theoretical knowledge. You must also be skilled in the lab, have the ability to define a research question and to design an experiment protocol. In addition, you need to collaborate with a variety of professionals and present your results in a scientific journal or at an (international) conference. Therefore, each course also involves a group project, in which you will work with fellow students on real-life biomedical problems. This way, you will learn to apply the theory of pharmaceutical sciences to creatively solve these problems.

From the first course, theory is accompanied by projects that simulate real world problems.

Why in Utrecht

• Small-scale education: due to the small scale of the programme and close-knit community with a maximum of 60 students in your class, you will give and receive additional support and motivation from other CPS students
• Project-based learning: projects on real-life biomedical or pharmaceutical problems
• Room for creativity and own initiative: freedom to pursue your personal interests
• Research environment: many lab sessions, education by scientists and visits to research institutes and companies

Studie in Cijfers

Would you like to compare this programme with the national average? View the results of Studie in Cijfers (in Dutch). Please note that the results are combined with the results from the Dutch Farmacie programme. Source: Studiekeuze123