The Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry is one the oldest department in the School of Pharmacy which was established in 1963. The major aim of the department is to create new knowledge for the discovery and development of new pharmaceutical drugs. Since twenty years ago, the mission has been defined as conducting basic research in chemistry and biological chemistry with regard to drug discovery, teaching these principles in the professional and graduate programs, and providing services to the scientific community. The scope of this field is sufficiently broad to give students with many different science backgrounds a rewarding and challenging educational program. Areas of active interest include drug discovery, organic synthesis of medicinal agents, natural product chemistry, pro-drugs, molecular modeling, and pharmaceutical analysis. There is a broad range of research projects which introduce new analytical methods for determining drugs in pharmaceutical dosage forms and biological fluids.The academic members of this department put the priority on teaching and research training of students at M.Sc., Pharm.D., Ph.D. and postdoctoral levels.
All undergraduate students are required to pass 27 core and noncore credits in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry. Training Ph.D. students in this field started in 1986. Ph.D. students are required to pass about 20 theoretical-practical core credits and 8 noncore credits and a total 22 credits on conducting their thesis. They have active participation in research projects, educational and research centers, industries and related organizations. Training M.Sc. students in this field launched from 2014.  M.Sc.students are required to pass about 21 theoretical-practical core credits and 16 noncore credits and finally 6 credits of performing their thesis.

Some undergoing activities in medicinal chemistry department can be summarized as follows:
• Discovery and validation of new anti-cancer, antibiotic, anti-Alzheimer, anti-HIV, anti leishmanial, anti-inflammatory, anti-hypertension, anti-multiple sclerosisand  and iron chelating agents;
•  Computational modeling and molecular dynamics simulation of bimolecular structures;
•  Isolation and identification of natural products;
•  Application of Mass, NMR, FTIR and other spectrophotometry techniques for the elucidation of the structure
natural products and synthetic small molecules;
•   Synthesis and evaluation of novel biopolymers for site-targeted drug delivery specific for cancer treatment;
•  Development of new analytical methods for  identification of chemical compounds and drugs in different matrixes.

  Laboratories
•  General Chemistry
•  Analytical Chemistry
•  Organic Chemistry
•  Pharmaceutical Analysis
•  Instrumental Analysis
•  Research Lab of Medicinal Chemistry