The Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences (PhSci) is part of the College of Pharmacy at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). The Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences is composed of faculty with teaching and research expertise in the basic pharmaceutical science disciplines of Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmacology and Pharmaceutics.

Medicinal Chemistry is the study of the chemical properties of medicinal agents, both synthetic and natural, as they relate to the stability, incompatibility, and chemical modes of action of these agents. It incorporates the biochemical principles associated with diseases, and nutrition, as well as an understanding of the methods for qualitative and quantitative determination of drugs in dosage forms and biological specimens. This provides the pharmacy student with knowledge of biosynthesis, isolation, and evaluation of drugs originating from both plants and animals. Included in this discipline is a study of microbiological principles related to pharmaceutical products.

Pharmacology incorporates the principles of anatomy, physiology, biochemistry and molecular biology into a study of the mechanism of action, therapeutic indication, dosage, and toxicology of all drugs.

Pharmaceutics is that area of expertise concerned with the development of dosage systems that deliver medications in proper amounts to their sites of action in the body. It is concerned not only with the physical and chemical factors influencing drug delivery systems, but also the many pharmacokinetic and biopharmaceutical factors involved such as drug release, absorption, distribution and elimination. These disciplines are designed to provide the pharmacy student with a basic pharmaceutical science foundation for other courses in the pharmacy curriculum, as well as preparing the student for programs of advanced study.