SUBJECT:   UCSD School of Pharmacy Update

We are pleased to report on our progress toward the opening of the UCSD School of Pharmacy, approved by the University of California Board of Regents in July. We are committed to offering students an innovative curriculum taught by stellar faculty in a program closely linked with UCSD's outstanding clinical, research and academic programs.

The decision has been made to matriculate our charter class in September 2002, with applications to become available in July 2001. This opening schedule allows us the necessary time to hire the best faculty leadership, staff, and administration, and to ensure that we are providing the highest quality education and training opportunities possible to our students. We are now focusing on faculty and leadership recruitment, continued program development, planning for a new School of Pharmacy building, and the cultivation of supportive private and corporate relationships.

We will be able to accommodate a greater number of entering students our first year and subsequent years than would have been possible if we tried to open sooner. We will inaugurate our school with 25 Pharm.D. students, along with our first group of Ph.D. students. Our goal is to increase our incoming class size to 60 Pharm.D. students by 2005, the target envisioned in our original proposal. Ultimately, our projected steady state size would be 240 Pharm.D. students, 60 Ph.D. students and 30 pharmacy residents. Our 25-year partnership with the UCSF partnership will continue.

The UCSD School of Pharmacy will be dedicated to the training of pharmacists well-prepared to participate in the increasingly complex management of drug regimens in the clinical care setting, or to pursue a different path and join the growing pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Our programs will recognize the expanded role of the pharmacist as a specialist in monitoring drug interactions, consulting on complex therapeutic issues, providing patient consults, developing skills in the emerging discipline of pharmacogenomics, and in overseeing development and testing of new drugs and drug therapies. UCSD is uniquely positioned to train pharmacists who will be leaders in these areas and who will meet the workforce needs of the region's retail pharmacies, clinical sites and pharmaceutical research centers.

We will keep you informed of our progress and look forward to the UCSD School of Pharmacy becoming a vital member of the nationally respected UCSD campus.

                                                David N. Bailey, M.D.
                                                Interim Vice Chancellor, Health Sciences and
                                                Dean, School of Medicine

                                                Edward M. Holmes, M.D.
                                                Vice Chancellor, Health Sciences and
                                                Dean, School of Medicine-Designate

                                                Palmer W. Taylor, Ph.D.
                                                Chair
                                                Department of Pharmacology