Course details

Summary

Build on your science degree and get a broad knowledge of the processes involved in drug discovery, design and development.

Help improve human or animal health through creating new or more effective drugs and medicines. Learn the research processes used to identify drug targets and develop new therapeutics.

Your studies will combine the biological sciences with chemistry, giving you the skills to target, design, synthesise, create and assess new drugs. You'll also learn about protecting intellectual property, assessing the financial viability of drugs and the pre-clinical and clinical trial processes.

Tailor your studies to your strengths, interests and career goals. You'll learn a mix of academic and practical skills that are closely aligned to the needs of industry.

The Master of Drug Discovery and Development is best suited to very able students with backgrounds in chemistry or relevant life-science subjects such as biochemistry, biomedical science, pharmacy or pharmacology. It is an intensive one-year taught programme, unique in New Zealand.

Careers

You'll have the broad skills you need to work in drug discovery in companies, universities, research institutes or with drug regulatory authorities. You might work within the pharmaceutical, bioanalytical or chemical industries, or take your skills into nutraceuticals or agrichemicals.

What you'll study

Each qualification includes the core courses DRGD 401 Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery, and a choice between DRDG 402 Drug Design or CHEM 421 Organic Chemistry and Bio-organic Chemistry.

After that you'll choose from selected courses from the study areas of Drug Discovery and Development, Biomedical Science, Biotechnology, Chemistry, Clinical Research and Microbiology.

You'll study for your Master's in two parts over three trimesters. In Part 1, the first two trimesters, you're likely to take seven courses that will include the core courses and a 30-point Research Preparation course.

In Part 2, you'll complete a full research project. Choose between DRDG 561 Applied Research Project, where you'll complete one or more problem-solving projects, or DRGD 590 Research Project, where you'll focus on medicinal chemistry and the formulation of active pharmaceutical products. In some cases you may be able to replace the research project with the thesis course DRGD 595.

Your Master's may be endorsed with a specialisation in either Drug Discovery, Drug Development or Chemical Biology. Check the requirements to find out what you need to do for these.

Research topics

Be part of a dynamic and collaborative scientific research community. Past students' research areas in drug discovery and development have included:

• development of a new scaled-up catalytic process for a high value fine chemical
• isolation and characterisation of a novel bioactive from a New Zealand marine organism
• formulation of a novel therapeutic for cancer immunotherapy.

Entry criteria

To be accepted into this programme you need:

• Bachelor's degree in Chemistry or relevant life-science subjects such as Biochemistry, Biomedical Science, Pharmacy or Pharmacology, with an average grade of B+
• To be accepted by the programme director as capable of proceeding with the proposed course of study

Other English Language requirements:

• IELTS overall band of 6.5, no sub-score below 6.0; or
• TOEFL 90 on the internet-based test with at least 20 in writing; or
• A minimum of two ratings of 5 and two ratings of 4 in the Victoria University English Proficiency Programme test
• Pearson Test of English: A score of 65 (with a ‘Communicative’ score of not less than 58).