Today’s Institute of Pharmacy evolved from the State Institute of Chemistry and the Institute of Applied Botany. Important steps towards scientific pharmacy education prior to the founding of the University of Hamburg included:

• the 1801 Pharmaceutical Society (for the advanced training of pharmacists' assistants in Hamburg, dissolved in 1807)
• the 1818 Medical Reform, which established the Board of Health and regulated the pharmacy system.
• the 1818 Pharmaceutical Society  (dissolved in 1842)
• the 1824 School of Pharmacy by the Board of Health  (closed in 1935)

Special mention should be made here of the pharmacist Dr. Georg Eimbcke, who serving as director of the Pharmaceutical Society  became the first pharmacist to be appointed to the Board of Health. In 1822, he published a piece named "Flora Hamburgensis pharmaceutica oder Verzeichnis und Bechreibung der um Hamburg und in den angrenzenden Ländern wildwachsenden Arzney-Pflanzen" ("Flora Hamburgensis pharmaceutica, or a Catalogue and Description of Medicinal Plants Growing Wild Around Hamburg and in the Neighbouring Regions"). Furthermore, under his leadership, the “Apparatus Medicaminum,” Hamburg’s first pharmacopoeia, was compiled in 1818.

Founded in 1878, the State Chemical Laboratory was also dedicated to pharmaceutical research. Several staff members were pharmacists, furthermore lectures on pharmaceutical topics were held. But no training was offered.  Later on, Wilhelm Göhlich, an employee of the State Chemical Laboratory, became the first professor of pharmaceutical chemistry .

With  the University of Hamburg being founded in 1919, it became possible to study pharmacy in Hamburg. The following persons were lecturers in 1919:

Paul Rabe: Inorganic Chemistry and Organic Chemistry
Wilhelm Göhlich: Pharmaceutical Chemistry
Hans Winkler: General Botany
Alfred Voigt: Pharmacognosy
Johannes Classen: Physics
Carl Brunner: Microscopy of foodstuffs, stimulants and drugs.

The examination board consisted of Peter-Paul Koch (chairman), Paul Rabe (vice chairman), Hans Winkler, Alfred Voigt, Wilhelm Göhlich, and pharmacist Rudolf Windrath (assessor for pharmacy).

In 1938, the training of pharmacists had to be suspended because the Nazi government restricted the study of pharmacy to a few universities. In 1946, the pharmacy program was reintroduced in Hamburg. Under the direction of Karl Kindler, an Institute for Pharmaceutical Chemistry was founded, which was initially housed on a temporary basis in a wing of Reinbeck Castle. In 1969, the institute moved into its new building on Bundestrasse.

History of the Pharmacy subjects

Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry

List of chairholders:
Wilhelm Göhlich → Karl Kindler → Felix Zymalkowski → Norbert Kreutzkamp → Detlef Geffken → Wolfgang Maison (since 2011)

Other scientific staff (professors, assistants):
Hans-Jürgen Duchstein, Wolfgang Hanefeld, Conrad Kunick, Thomas Kurz, Jochen Lehmann, Thomas Lemcke, Andreas Link, Klaus Lührs, Dieter Matthies, Paul Messinger, Herbert Oelschläger, Ulrich Riederer, Harald G. Schweim.

Pharmaceutical Technology

List of chairholders:
Heinz Sucker → Jobst B. Mielck → Claudia S. Leopold since 2005)

List of Akademische Räte (equiv. to lecturer)
Horst Kassebaum → Hans-Jürgen Langmaack → Albrecht Sakmann.

Fritz Neuwald taught galenic pharmacy from winter semester 1949/50 at the University of Hamburg. In 1956 he was apl. Professor (equiv. to research professor) for Galenic Pharmacy.

Pharmagnosy  → Pharmaceutical Biology → Pharmaceutical Biology and Microbiology

List of chairholders:
Ilse Esdorn → Hilmar Friedrich → Ewald Sprecher → Karl-Heinz Kubeczka → Peter Heisig  → Bianka Siewert (since 2025)

Other scientific staff (professors and assistants):
Heinrich Glasl, Anke Heisig, Ljubomir Kraus (serving also as interim director), Cornelia Koob, Fritz Neuwald, Gesa Reher, Wulf Schultze, Elisabeth Stahl-Biskup.
In 1992, the unit was moved from the Department of Biology to the Institute of Pharmacy of the Deparment of Chemistry. 

Before pharmacognosy was established as an independent field, pharmacists were trained directly by lecturers in applied botany, among others by Alfred Voigt and Carl Brunner.

Befor pharmagnosy was founded, pharmacists were directly trained by staff from Applied Botanics, among others by Alfred Voigt and Carl Brunner.

Clinical Pharmacy

List of chairholder:
Dorothe Dartsch  → Sebastian Wicha (since 2022)

Health Sciences

The Health Sciences programme was directed by Ingrid Mühlhauser.

Pharmacology and Toxicology

List of chairholder:
Hans-Friedrich Benthe → Regine Kahl → Michael Korth → Elke Oetjen
This subject is covered as a service course by the Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology of the UKE (Eppendorf University Hospital). Since these professors work for the UKE, their publications are not listed here.