Established in 1949, the Department of Pharmacology is headed by Dr. Anuradha Gandhi and trains undergraduate and postgraduate students in line with the National Medical Commission and Gujarat University guidelines. The department admits 250 MBBS students and 16 MD Pharmacology postgraduates each year, and also teaches BDS, Physiotherapy, Nursing, allied health and Ph.D. (Medical) scholars. Teaching follows a Competency-Based Medical Education framework, with innovative methods including case-based learning, peer teaching and self-directed learning.

The department serves as the Regional Training and Adverse Drug Reaction Monitoring Centre under the Pharmacovigilance Programme of India (PvPI), and is ranked among the top ten performing pharmacovigilance centres in the country. It is also a Medical Device Adverse Event Monitoring Centre under the Materiovigilance Programme of India (MVPI) and an NAC-NET Centre for antimicrobial consumption. To date, it has reported more than 14,300 adverse drug reactions and 950 medical-device adverse events, and serves as the Nodal Centre for Antimicrobial Consumption and Prescription Audit for the Government of Gujarat.

Research is supported by ICMR and state and national funding bodies. The department coordinates the Institutional Ethics Committee, Prescription Research and Rational Use of Medicines projects. It has previously managed the Indian Journal of Pharmacology and has published over 120 research papers in the past decade. National training programmes and awareness campaigns on rational therapeutics, pharmacovigilance and materiovigilance are conducted on a regular basis.

Through its integrated focus on teaching, research, rational prescribing and public-health pharmacovigilance, the Department of Pharmacology is recognised as an academic leader in the State of Gujarat.