The main objectives of the Master studies of “Pharmaceutical and Cosmetic Products” are related to the formation of highly trained personal for fine organic synthesis (designing and performing laboratory experiments, synthesis optimization, scientific data interpretation etc.) with emphasis on the study of chemicals related to pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. One should not ignore the fact that, among the industrial branches of chemistry, Pharmaceuticals or Cosmetics are spearhead industries, billions of euros/dollars being granted each year for research and production. Thus, our students are given, upon graduation of this Master program, two options: either fundamental research (hence the theoretical and practical laboratory training provided in the syllabus) or industry R&D, as illustrated by the versatility of the proposed curricula.

Since this Master course is open to graduates of various backgrounds, the curricula proposed is well-balanced between recaps of organic chemistry disciplines, state-of-the-art modern disciplines in the chemistry, biochemistry and analysis of pharmaceutical and cosmetic organic compounds, as well as marketing or rules of good practice in these particular industries. Through judiciously chosen disciplines that harmoniously combine the above-mentioned topics (see program fact-sheet), along with an original research project carried out by each student (under the supervision of a tutor), the training of the future graduates is aimed to a final entwining of a design engineer (perfectly fitted for research and bench-work) with a manufacturing engineer (well prepared for all tasks relating production management to marketing and selling). The acquired skills prepare our graduates for various domains as chemistry in life sciences (pharmacology, cosmetology, natural products), in green chemistry (sustainable or environmental chemistry) or in matter functionalization (advanced materials, nanochemistry). Moreover, due to the large scope of the fields (research of new biologically-active new compounds, development of new strategies and synthetic procedures, environmental concern etc.), future Master graduates can chose to further specialize by completing a Ph.D. program, being able to start a carrier in the academia.

The total duration of the “Pharmaceutical and Cosmetic Products” Master program is 4 semesters, 3 of which are assigned to the development of theoretical skills (through various courses and tutorials) and practical skills (laboratories in the fields of organic synthesis, natural product isolation, separation procedures – GC, GC-MS, HPLC – and structural analysis through several methods – IR, UV, NMR), while the last semester is destined to the finalization of the Master research project. A special requirement for our Master is that the main achievement of the student’s research project is at least an original research paper, which serves as a supplementary training in the field of redacting, editing, presenting and publishing a scientific work.