OpenFieldYokohama University of Pharmacy (Hamayaku) is a leading pharmaceutical university in Totsuka, Yokohama, celebrated for pioneering Japan’s first Department of Traditional Chinese and Kampo Medicine alongside advanced clinical pharmacology.
Operating an expansive botanical research garden with over 1,000 medicinal plant species, Hamayaku provides 6-year clinical pharmacist degree tracks and 4-year pharmaceutical science programs. Research centers specialize in Kampo phytochemistry, targeted oncology drug delivery, and analytical toxicology.
Undergraduate admissions for the 6-year pharmacy and 4-year pharmaceutical sciences curricula require high school completion with strong scientific aptitude. International applicants require certified Japanese proficiency (JLPT N1 or N2) and science exams.
Accredited six-year professional degree qualifying graduates for the Japan National Pharmacist Examination (Yakuzaishi), featuring clinical hospital rotations, pharmacokinetics, and therapeutics.
Japan’s premier academic program in Kampo phytochemistry, isolating bioactive natural products from medicinal herbs, evaluating herbal pharmacognosy, and designing standardized botanical pharmaceuticals.
Postgraduate doctoral training in synthetic medicinal chemistry, computer-aided drug design, pharmacokinetic modeling, and biochemical toxicology of novel therapeutics.
Visiting research fellowship utilizing the 20,000-square-meter Hamayaku Medicinal Botanical Garden to profile endangered medicinal plant alkaloids and evaluate anti-inflammatory natural extracts.
Four-year program preparing functional food development specialists, analyzing dietary supplement safety, nutraceutical chemistry, gut microbiome pharmacology, and regulatory food law.
Financial support grant assisting foreign pharmacists preparing for the Japanese Pharmacist Licensure Equivalence evaluation and enrollment into graduate pharmacology programs.
Professor of Pharmacognosy and Natural Products Chemistry · Department of Natural Product Chemistry
Prof. Dr. Yoshihiro Mimaki is a distinguished natural product chemist who has isolated and structurally elucidated hundreds of novel saponins and glycosides with selective cytotoxic activity against human tumor cell lines.
View research profile ↗Dean of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences · Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Prof. Dr. Katsuyoshi Matsunami investigates therapeutic phytochemicals from tropical and temperate medicinal plants, identifying enzymatic targets for antimalarial, antiviral, and anti-diabetic botanical extracts.
View research profile ↗Professor of Clinical Pharmacokinetics and Drug Delivery Systems · Department of Clinical Pharmacy
Prof. Dr. Noriko Takahashi designs lipid nanoparticle delivery systems to transport chemotherapeutic agents across biological membranes, optimizing clinical dosing regimens for geriatric cancer patients.
View research profile ↗University profile compiled from official Yokohama University of Pharmacy academic bulletins and institutional directories reviewed on 2026-10-16. OpenField is an independent research guide.