Clinical Pharmacology BSc (Hons)

Course content

The curriculum is based around seven core themes. Your knowledge and skills in these topics will develop progressively through the course.

• Fundamentals of science: Understanding how the body works and what goes wrong in disease.
• Pharmacokinetics: How the body handles drugs.
• Pharmacodynamics: How drugs exert their effects on the body.
• Drug development and clinical trials: How drugs are discovered and developed as medicines.
• Drugs in healthcare: How information from clinical trials and drug development is used to guide the use of medicines for patients in clinical practice.
• Data and statistics: How to collect, manage, analyse, present and interpret research data relating to drugs.
• Skills portfolio: Developing clinical trials, laboratory, presentation and personal skills required to be successful in a work environment and demonstrate this to employers.

Year 1

In the first semester, you will be introduced to a broad spectrum of concepts across the seven themes. In the second semester, your focus turns to key drug targets, including inflammatory, infectious, cardiovascular and metabolic disease. You will look at each topic from the perspective of the different themes and accompany your theoretical learning with clinical and laboratory practicals, workshops and data analysis.

Throughout the course, you will be developing skills that will be imminently transferrable to future employment. In the first year, for example, developing both presentation and communication skills, you work in teams to prepare and make the case for a new drug. This includes pitching your ideas to a ‘Dragons’ Den’ style panel of judges, which has previously included St George’s Principal and industry representatives.

Year 2

In Semester 3 (the first semester of Year 2) you will continue your learning about key drug targets, focusing on neurological and psychiatric disease, cancer, reproduction, paediatrics and old age. You will develop your knowledge and skills around clinical trials design, data handling and pharmacokinetics. Weekly careers workshops help you find out about all the options open to you on completing the degree to help you select projects, placements and Year 3 modules.

Year 2 exams are at the end of Semester 3, so you can focus for the rest of the year on gaining practical experience. In the first half of semester 4, you will undertake a practical research project that will give you experience of clinical- or laboratory-based research. You will present the results of your study in a scientific symposium and write it up as a research paper. You will then spend six weeks gaining valuable work-related experience. This may be a group-based project working with some of the stakeholders associated with the University and hospital to complete a real-world project, extended time in a research lab, working in a company setting or placement in a European University. Companies that took students in previous years include Astra Zeneca, Niche Pharmaceuticals, Airfinity, Fortrea, Takeda, Richmond Pharmacology, Boyd Consultants and Eurofins. These placements will strengthen your teamwork, communication, and problem-solving abilities, developing the confidence and work-ready skills employers value most.

At the end of your second year, you can also choose to take a ‘professional year’, applying for a placement in industry to develop your experience and enhance your CV, capitalising on our excellent links across the sector.

Year 3

In the final year, you will look at latest advances and ‘hot topics’, including new therapeutic approaches to disease and cutting-edge drug developments, such as biological drugs, nanotechnology and gene therapy. You will use your career plans and experience to choose course modules to study to a more advanced level. Year 3 includes a written research project, where you get the chance to write a scientific review with support from a team of expert tutors.

We share our site with one of the UK’s largest teaching hospitals giving you the chance to learn in a busy healthcare environment. Most of our teaching staff hold clinical roles or have previously worked as a healthcare professional, so you will learn from academics with real on-the-job experience.

Studying at a smaller, more specialist university means we’ll get to know you and help you reach your potential. You’ll be part of interactive group sessions and our academics are always on hand if you need extra support.

How our experts teach depends on the course content, but we recognise that our students have different learning styles. On this course, you can expect a diverse range of:

• Clinical placements
• Clinical skills sessions
• Computer-based sessions
• Guest lectures
• Group work
• Lab-based sessions
• Lectures
• Online learning
• Patient interaction
• Practical workshops
• Seminars
• Simulation
• Tutorials

Assessment

The way we assess your learning will change depending on the module but we use a variety of assessment methods so every student has a chance to show their knowledge and strengths. You can expect a mixture of:

• A clinical portfolio
• Case reviews
• Clinical practice assessments
• Essays
• Exams
• Oral presentations
• Poster presentations
• Reports
• Research projects

To prepare you for the practical challenges you’ll face, we design assessments that reflect real-world scenarios, such as case reviews and research projects.

Your assessments will be formative and summative. This means some won’t count towards your final grade and you’ll have the chance to improve based on our feedback.

Placement

All students will undertake six weeks of work experience with an employer during the second year of the course. This will give you the opportunity to find out more about what it takes to be successful in the workplace and what you might want to do after this degree.

In 2021 and 2022, employers who offered work experience to our students included:

• Pharmaceutical companies – Astra Zeneca, Roche, GSK, Takeda
• Contract research organisations – LabCorp, Niche Pharmaceuticals, Richmond Pharmacology
• Pharmacovigilance and regulatory affairs – Boyd Consultants
• Research companies – HelloBio, Airfinity, Eurofins clinical diagnostics.

In addition to the guaranteed six weeks’ work experience, you will have the optional opportunity to apply for an external professional year. The application process for a professional year is to individual companies who advertise their opportunities and is competitive. If successful, you would undertake the professional year between Years 2 and 3.

In 2021 and 2022 students were successful in gaining placement years with major companies including GlaxoSmithKline, Labcorp, Merck Sharp and Dohme and Sanofi.

The supervised, hands-on experience you get with both types of placements is an excellent way to consolidate your learning and makes you extremely attractive to employers on graduation. You will gain experience of working as part of a team, demonstrating professional behaviour. You will be supervised and mentored by experienced professionals and receive support from a University tutor.

Our course is unusual in offering all students work experience, as well as supporting the additional professional year in those who are interested.