Pharmacy at Xi’an Jiaotong University is one of the earliest academic disciplines in China. The history can be traced to 1939. The discipline currently offers BS, MS, Ph.D., and post-doctoral programs in pharmaceutical analysis, medicinal chemistry, pharmaceutics, pharmacology, pharmacognosy, pharmacy administration, clinic pharmacy and pharmaceutical engineering. The discipline also enrolls international students. With all of this, the School of Pharmacy aims to be a leader in health care development through innovative pharmaceutical education, research and practice. Till today, it has developed an increasingly comprehensive internship program and an advanced teaching system, including 16 field training bases, three affiliated hospitals, and eight teaching hospitals. The specific research areas include the following: theories, methods, applications and intelligent analysis equipment of cell membrane chromatography, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases and vagus nerve regulation, natural drug resources in Qinba mountain area and their components identification, mechanism of action and pharmacy administration and drug policy. The school has a total lab area of over 10,000 square meters with advanced scientific instruments, such as NMR, flow cytometer, confocal microscope, protein quadrupole mass spectrometer, GC/MS, LC/MS, etc. It also publishes the Journal of Pharmaceutical Analysis (JPA) and Northwestern Pharmaceutical Journal. JPA is indexed by SCI (IF: 4.44) data. The discipline of Pharmacy & Pharmacology of Xi'an Jiaotong University were ranked among 151st and 200th, the 11th in mainland China universities according to the QS ranking system of 2020.

Representative Academic Staff

The school has 115 well-qualified faculty members, including 39 professors and 48 associate professors. 95.6% of the members hold a doctoral degree and 70% of them have overseas academic experience. Many have been selected for support by various academic talent plans like Chaired Professor of Cheung Kong Scholar Program, State Council Special Allowance Expert Program, National Outstanding Scientific and Technological Researcher, Education Ministry’s New Century Excellent Talent Program, and part time Chinese Academy of Sciences or Chinese Academy of Engineering fellows.

Many eminent experts and professors have made significant contributions to the development of pharmacy. Professor He Langchong is one of them. He has been awarded the National Outstanding Scientific and Technological Researcher and a winner of the State Council Special Allowance Expert Program. His research team has been engaged in vascular drug research and development for decades, and they set up the National and Local Joint Engineering Research Center for Natural Vascular Drug Screening and Analysis approved by the National Development and Reform Commission. His team has made a series of outstanding achievements and breakthroughs in the discovery of vascular drug precursors, structural optimization, screening and evaluation, and new drug development. The research center has developed CMC (cell membrane chromatography) stationary phase preparation, a new technology using the theory and technology of cell biology, receptor pharmacology and chromatography separation science. The established chromatography models targeting different cell membrane receptors have provided new analytical methods for studying drug-receptor interaction. The research center also provides a screening technology platform suitable for investigations in effective substances and quality control of traditional Chinese medicines and the prescription drugs. In 2020, the "Medical Intelligent Analysis System and Equipment Research and Development" project with the CMC equipment as the core project has been selected as the first batch of funding projects from Guangdong Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Economy with approved funding of 50 million CNY for engineering research and industrialization promotion.

Representative Graduates

The School of Pharmacy has graduated more than 3,000 innovative talents. Half of them have started their careers in western China, including those whose research was supported by “National Outstanding Youth” Foundation, and those who are State Council’s Special Allowance Expert Program. In recent five years, our undergraduates have won the Gold Prize of the “Internet+” in China and second prize of the national college students’ extracurricular academic and technological works competition. In total, they got awards in more than 10 categories. Notably, Dr. Xue Xuanji, a graduate in Pharmaceutical Analysis, was awarded the first batch of “Model 100 Graduate Students” in all universities in China during her postgraduate study. School of Pharmacy achieved success in small-size class teaching, for it allows student active class participation and experiences. During the past five years, all of our graduates have furthered their studies in well-known institutions home and abroad. These institutions include Peking University, Peking Union Medical College, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Zhejiang University, Fudan University, Johns Hopkins University, King’s College London, University of Minnesota, National University of Singapore and other top 100 universities in the world, and the employment rate of our graduates has achieved 99%.  

Representative Achievements

The School of Pharmacy places emphasis on the research and development of new drugs, the combination of theoretical and practical research, as well as enhancement of the long-term development of R&D of new drugs by organizing and undertaking important national, provincial and ministerial research projects. We have successfully invented and developed two analytical instruments: the “drug receptor interaction instrument” and “two - dimensional analyzer for screening allergens from traditional Chinese medicine injection”, which are currently under commercialization. We have also successfully developed an allergen screening kit that has been verified by all clinical trials, and is qualified for industrialization. In addition, a series of derivatives were successfully synthesized by using the mother nucleus, taspine base, which is the active component of Qinling endemic plant, Hong Maoqi. In particular, we have identified a compound HMQ1611 which has the huge potential to develop into a class I innovative drug. From 2016-2020, the School of Pharmacy has made great achievements in various aspects. We won various awards, including a Second Prize for the National Award for Technological Inventionnational Award, one First Prize and six Second Prizes for Shaanxi Science and Technology Progress Award, and Xi’an Science and Technology Progress Award. More than 110 research projects were funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China, including two National Key Projects and one Major International (Regional) Joint Research Project. More than 60 projects were funded by Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi province. The total amount of research funding has reached 120 million CNY. In the past five years, the school patents more than 100 inventions and published more than 500 scientific research papers. More than 10 papers were selected as the ESI highly cited papers. Some of them have been published in leading journals such as Lancet, Lancet Infectious Diseases, Advanced Science, Journal of American Chemical Society, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Medicinal Research Reviews. Since 2016, the school has collaborated with more than 30 pharmaceutical enterprises in China to provide technical support in   technology upgrading and new product development. Technical service contracts have been signed with Tianjin TASLY Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Xi'an Jiuzhoutong Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Hunan Zhengqing Pharmaceutical Group Co. Ltd., Tianjin Hong Ri Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. and other pharmaceutical companies worth 68 million CNY. The vision of the school is to offer a dynamic and interactive education environment and provide quality learning experiences as well. For the past five years, we have undertaken several educational reform projects at the national, provincial, ministerial and university levels. We have been awarded with “Second National Prize for Competition Among National Universities in Micro Class Teaching for Pharmacy Majors”, as well as awards for “Special Provincial Prize for Teaching Achievements”.

Domestic & International Influences of the Discipline

The surveys conducted by the university show that 100% of the graduates were satisfied with their majors, and 97.6% of them with the teaching methods and quality. The employers of the graduates include well-known pharmaceutical enterprises (such as Pfizer, Novartis, Johnson & Johnson) and large-scale tertiary hospitals (such as Peking Union Medical College Hospital and Affiliated Hospitals of Xi'an Jiaotong University). All of them positively evaluate the quality and potential of our graduates with the satisfaction rate exceeding 98%. Now the School of Pharmacy has developed a wide range of co-operations with famous universities, institutes and medical organizations in America, Japan, Hong Kong and European countries, etc. From 2016 to 2020, the enrollment of international students has reached 38, and the school also offers exchange programs for all domestic students. More than 30 students have taken part in the exchange programs with renowned universities and institutions worldwide.