The Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry was established at the University of Kansas in 1967 by the late professor Takeru Higuchi. Higuchi is considered by many to be the "father of physical pharmacy". Before his entry into the field, the development of dosage forms was governed largely by tradition and trial and error. Higuchi was among the first pharmaceutical scientists to recognize and to teach that drug substances are chemicals and their properties in vivo and in vitro are governed by well established physico-chemical principles.

Pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of Kansas continues to be defined by this philosophy: that success in understanding drug action, in controlling drug delivery across biological membranes and to a drug receptor site, in the development of stable formulations and the design of sophisticated analytical methods, requires a thorough understanding of basic physical, biophysical and organic chemistry. These principles are equally important for the development of traditional small molecule drugs and for emerging biotechnology products such as peptides and proteins. Pharmaceutical chemistry embodies those areas of research and instruction referred to variously as pharmaceutics, physical pharmacy, preformulation, formulation, and pharmaceutical analysis. All of these areas are represented in the research and teaching activities of the department.