The Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics is a key department in the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery serving several degree courses at the University. It is responsible for co-ordinating all the pharmacology modules and related practical and tutorial sessions for the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, Institute of Health Care, Faculty of Education, Faculty of Science and Faculty of Law. On a postgraduate level, the Department runs its own M.Sc. (Pharmacology/Clinical Pharmacology) course, which is offered every two years as a part-time degree programme, and also offers M.Phil. and Ph.D. programmes within its main research areas.

The principle research activities of the department focus on the pharmacology of drugs used in asthma and epilepsy with a special interest in chiral, pharmacokinetic and pharmacogenetic aspects. The Department collaborates closely with the Departments of Medicine, Neurology and Paediatrics at Mater Dei Hospital and the Caritas Malta Epilepsy Association both in research activities as well as in the organization of academic conferences. Research collaborations also exist with the Department of Pathology and the Institute of Agriculture of the University of Malta. Research is also being carried out on Maltese medical history.

The Department also works closely with the Medicines Authority in Malta and members of the department have been appointed as experts on the Pharmacogenomics working party of the European Medicines Agency. It has also successfully obtained RTDI research funds from the Malta Council for Science and Technology. On the international level, the Department has collaborated with the University of Minnesota in organising an International Pharmacokinetics School and is also presently undertaking conjoint research on antiepileptic drugs in the elderly. It also has strong research links with Queen’s University of Belfast, N. Ireland, Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham and the European Epilepsy Academy (EUREPA). Members of the Department also participate in several international funded projects such as a UNESCO project on research in epilepsy, an EU Grundtvig project on developing a curriculum for professionals allied to medicines (PAMs) working in epilepsy, an EU Youth project on Epilepsy Youth in Europe (EyiE), and EPICURE - an FP6 project on functional genomics for novel therapeutic strategies in epilepsy.