A global alliance of pharmacy schools based in the UK, Australia and the United States has been launched to boost joint international research and advance pharmacy education.
The partnership, announced on 10 March 2015, will last for five years and has been signed by three schools — the UCL School of Pharmacy in London, the University of North Carolina Eshelman School of Pharmacy in Chapel Hill and the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Monash University in Melbourne.
The intention is that the schools will collaborate on global pharmacy research by accessing international funding streams for each of the three countries. Areas it plans to focus on include drug discovery, nanomedicine development and nanotechnology.
“The geographic and quality aspects of this alliance present the opportunity for a truly global perspective on pressing healthcare issues,” says Duncan Craig, director of the UCL School of Pharmacy. “The possibilities afforded by the partnership are unprecedented, and we are very excited to begin exploring these activities.”
The partnership, which follows a memorandum of understanding, will also allow joint training, development and exchange opportunities for students and staff.
The leaders of all three schools agree that the alliance gives them unprecedented access to expertise and resources on a scale that could never be enjoyed by a single institution.
