What
The faculty organizes two “domain” Master’s degree, namely the Master in Pharmaceutical Care and the Master in Drug Development. Both degrees lead to the professional title of pharmacist and therefore include the legally required work placement period of 26 weeks. The Master in Drug Development (2 years) builds on the academic Bachelor’s degree (3 years) in Pharmaceutical Sciences. This Master’s degree focuses on drug research and prepares you for a position in the industry and research, whether or not after completing an advanced master’s degree such as Industrial Pharmacy and Clinical Biology or after completing a doctorate.
For whom
The admission requirements vary. Depending on your prior education, you are either able to enrol directly, or there are additional requirements.
Structure
In both Master’s years, scientific pharmaceutical education takes centre stage, with a strong focus on practice-based scientific knowledge. The curriculum aims at integrating pharmaceutical knowledge and skills, and is a mixture of pharmaceutical-technological, medical-biological, and specifically, pharmaceutical knowledge.
In addition to a number of general course units shared with the Pharmaceutical Care curriculum, the Drug Development curriculum contains a number of specific compulsory course units. The first-year curriculum includes a Master’s dissertation that is based on experimental research conducted in a national or foreign laboratory. By means of elective course units, the second-year curriculum allows students to further orient their education depending on their interests or future prospects. Students choose one of the following majors: Personalized Medicines, Biologics, Molecular Imaging, Manufacturing and Regulatory Quality. In all of these majors, there is a considerable input from professionals in the relevant fields. The work placement period is scheduled for the second year. It is possible to undertake part of the work placement during the summer break following the first year. A number of ‘follow-up days’ are planned in which the practical experience is assessed and adjusted.
In addition to the (domain) Master’s programme described above, you can also choose a Master’s Programme in Teaching (in Dutch: Educatieve Master). More information about this can be found at www.ugent.be/educatievemaster.
Labour Market
The versatility of the study programme offers the graduate pharmacist a wide range of career opportunities. Recent figures indicate that more than 40% of graduate pharmacists develop a career outside the traditional pharmacy. In 2012, more than 32,000 people were employed in the pharmaceutical industry in Belgium. Pharmacists can be employed in the most diverse functions:
Pharmaceutical Production and Quality Control
- Production manager
- QA (quality assurance) – manager or laboratory director
- Validation Manager
Research and Development (R&D)
- discovering and developing new medicines (research & development)
- development of galenic forms and analytical methods
- experimental and clinical pharmacology
Scientific -support positions
- preparation of drug dossiers for approval and registration
- preparation of scientific information
- person responsible for the provision of information (publicity and information)
- person responsible for pharmacovigilance
- successor of clinical studies in the different development phases
- data-manager
- marketing researcher
- product manager and sales manager
- informing the health corps (incl. doctors, veterinarians, nursing staff)
Although graduate Masters in Drug Development can start working directly in the industry, they can also take the interuniversity advanced Master’s degree in Industrial Pharmacy (60 ECTS credits) or complete a doctorate.
Graduates also find their way in related sectors ranging from (functional) food, medical devices, cosmetics, blood and tissue banks to fine chemicals, biocides and health economics and policies, in the industry as well as in education, ministries and health institutions.
Pharmacists-biologists are employed in both hospitals and private laboratories. Many forensic (legal) toxicologists are qualified pharmacists, trained with knowledge of human physiology and insights into biological ‘markers’ to detect pathological conditions and follow their evolution. For this, you can take an additional advanced Master in Clinical Biology (120 ECTS credits + three years of work placement).
Developing a career in government scientific institutions or education (secondary education, university colleges) is also an option. Pharmacists are also employed at a European and international level, for example, in the European Medicines Evaluation Agency (EMEA) in Amsterdam or the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva.
Explore the many possibilities in the carrièregids with a whole series of stories from former students.
Quality Assurance
At Ghent University, we strive to educate people who dare to think about the challenges of tomorrow. For that purpose, we provide education that is embedded in six strategic objectives: Think Broadly, Keep Researching, Cultivate Talent, Contribute, Extend Horizons, Opt for Quality.
Ghent University continuously focuses on quality assurance and quality culture. The Ghent University's quality assurance system offers information on each study programme’s unique selling points, and on its strengths and weaknesses with regard to quality assurance.
More information:
Unique Selling Points
- Drug Development: The study programme focuses on understanding and being able to apply the principles and methods that are used internationally in the discovery, development and marketing of medicines. Pharmaceutical skills (such as e.g. quantitative analysis and quality assurance, production and formulation of drugs, and the design and evaluation of both in-vitro and in-vivo experiments) are sharpened.
- Embedding in the professional field: In this Master’s programme, there is a strong contribution from professionals from the relevant field. The second-year work placement guarantees a permanent connection with the patients and doctors; for 26 weeks, our students work in a pharmacy and learn to function independently and in a team.
- Tailor-made curriculum: the second-year curriculum offers a choice of four majors (Personalized Medicines, Biologics, Molecular Imaging, Manufacturing and Regulatory Quality) and an additional elective course unit, which allows students to delve further into a specific subject depending on their own interests or future perspectives.
- English-taught courses: A number of course units (majors, electives and programme-specific courses) are offered in English; in this way students come into contact with the professional jargon and are better prepared for the international context of the pharmaceutical and related sectors.
- Labour market: The combination of an in-depth but versatile academic study programme with practical skills offers a wide range of career opportunities, including access to advanced studies. This study programme prepares you for managerial positions in a broad field within the pharmaceutical and related sectors: industry, research institutions, health institutions, various government agencies or education.
Strengths
- Integration of knowledge and skills: the curriculum integrates a thorough scientific pharmaceutical product knowledge and skills with general business skills, and combines general technological, medical-biological with specific pharmaceutical competencies and a clear future-oriented vision on preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic product development.
- Research: our lecturers’ research is internationally renowned. Choosing this programme, students opt for a strong research-based curriculum, closely aligned with the latest evolutions and innovative approaches in health products.
- The anchoring of theory and practice takes place during the Master’s thesis in the first year and the work placement in the second year. Under the expert guidance of academics and pharmacists, our students are stimulated to think in a problem-solving way. The study programme also offers high-quality Erasmus work placements.
- Motivated, experienced and versatile lecturers teachers: The team of lecturers, assistants and supervisors has great and diverse expertise in various areas of discovery, development and follow-up of medicines and related products.
- Strong input from the professional field: Education, research and practice are integrated into the curriculum by lecturers and experts from the various domains. Many Master’s dissertations are conducted in external laboratories and (pharma) companies.
Challenges
- Study load: The study programme is perceived as heavy by the students. The Programme Committee will continue to monitor this study load.
- Assessment and feedback: In its competency-oriented education, the programme will focus more on appropriate feedback for assessments and exams. To this end, it will develop a feedback culture and provide students with even better information and encouragement to use the provided feedback options.
- Assistant teaching staff: Professors are strongly involved in education policy, but we will focus more on the involvement of temporary teaching staff.
This study programme is accredited by the Accreditation Organization of the Netherlands and Flanders (Dutch: NVAO). Accreditation was extended following the positive outcome of the institutional review in 2022. Programme quality was validated by a quality review, i.e. a screening of the Education Monitor by the Education Quality Board. The Quality Assurance Resolution (in Dutch) can be found here.
This information was last updated on 01/02/2023.
In case of questions or suggestions with regard to the publicly available information, please contact the study programme.