The KU School of Pharmacy opened in 1885 with its first class of 23 students. The School’s first dean, Lucius E. Sayre, was an early advocate for educating pharmacists more thoroughly. Sayre required all applicants to have completed four years of high school, a relatively stringent requirement at the time. Later in his tenure, Sayre also increased the length of the pharmacy program from two years to three years.

The School relocated to Bailey Hall in 1900, and Sayre passed away in 1925. His successor, L.D. Havenhill, continued his work and extended the pharmacy degree program to a full four years. He retired in 1940 and was replaced by J. Allen Reese—who was, at 34 years old, the youngest member of KU’s administration. Reese added yet another year onto the pharmacy program and created a new graduate-level program as well. His tenure also saw the construction of Malott Hall in 1925, to which the School of Pharmacy relocated.

Under the next dean, Howard E. Mossberg, the School continued to grow and added four new laboratory buildings on west campus for the graduate student program. The School also succeeded in gaining increasing amounts of funding from the National Institute of Health throughout the 1980s.

The Bachelor of Science Pharmacy degree was discontinued in 1996, leaving the School to focus on its doctorate program.

In 2010, the School of Pharmacy officially opened its new building on the Lawrence campus, followed by a second building at the Wichita campus in 2011.