The University of Nottingham’s School of Pharmacy celebrated its 100th year with a symposium featuring acclaimed alumni and experts across industry, government and academia.
The school’s head Professor Barrie Kellam said Nottingham stands as a “pioneer with proud scientific heritage”, and that “excellence endures when science, responsibility and impact evolve together”.
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He praised the school’s enduring partnership with Boots who helped to establish the school. One of the school’s alumni, Dr Stewart Adams OBE, led the Boots team that developed Ibuprofen.
“Nottingham’s graduates are shaping healthcare delivery, industry and policy across 89 countries,” Kellam said. “Their technical training gives them the confidence to take responsibility early, and to move fluidly between clinical practice, medicines regulation and research.”
Alumni
200 experts gathered for the centenary celebration and explored how pharmacy is evolving in “clinical practice, independent prescribing, and the use of platform technologies to transform how medicines are developed and delivered”, according to Kellam.
Discussions featured Nottingham pharmacy alumni such as the Company Chemists’ Association (CCA) chief executive Malcolm Harrison, England’s chief pharmaceutical officer David Webb and Great Ormond Street Hospital children’s medicines research director Stephen Tomlin.
Webb said it’s “vital” to support graduates as pharmacists step into “clinical leadership with expanded professional roles”, such as the 2025-26 cohort being the first to qualify as independent prescribers.
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“The strength of pharmacy lies in the ability to span disciplines while remaining anchored in science,” he added.
Honorary staff also contributed including the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) chief executive Catherine Duggan and former Boots superintendent pharmacist Andrew Digby Emson OBE.
Digby Emson said “millions have benefited” from the school’s research as it has “improved access and public health outcomes at scale” and “made large cost savings for the NHS”.
World-leading
The school ranked eighth in the world for pharmacy in the QS World University Rankings that were published in March.
Vice chancellor Professor Jane Norman said the ranking “speaks to a century of hard work, curiosity and commitment” and follows decades of shaping “how medicines are discovered, developed and delivered”.
“We have translated scientific excellence into real world impact and are pushing forward advances in pharmacy and pharmaceutical science that are improving global health,” she added.
Read more: The Boots employee for 50 years who helped produce ibuprofen
Director of research Professor Cameron Alexander said the pharmacy school’s innovations were “embedded in patient care and saving thousands of lives”.
He said researchers are developing 3D-printed personalised tablets “capable of delivering precisely-timed doses” and advancing antibacterial ‘non-stick’ coatings for medical devices “to cut the toll of hospital infections”
“We are even exploring how medicines might be manufactured, stabilised and supplied on space missions, with applications to emergency and remote healthcare here on Earth,” he added.
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It comes as Nottingham came seventh in the 2026 Planetary Health Report Card (PHRC) for pharmacy for integrating planetary health and environmental sustainability into its pharmacy school.
C+D spoke to Nottingham’s Dr Li Shean Toh, the “queen of space pharmacy”, who explains what this area of research is all about and how it can evolve “medicines development from Earth to space, and space to Earth”.
