A new partnership between the University of Hawaii at Hilo’s College of Pharmacy and Bangkok’s Rangsit University is being hailed as both an opportunity for aspiring pharmacists to gain international perspectives on their field and a mutually beneficial arrangement that can help researchers develop new drugs based on traditional remedies. 

In the exchange program, UH Hilo students in their fourth year of pharmacy school can visit Rangsit University, which is located north of Bangkok proper in the Pathum Thani province, to fulfill their advanced pharmacy practice degree requirement. The program also brings Thai Ph.D. students to Hawaii to work in UH Hilo’s labs.

Meanwhile, faculty from the universities can collaborate on pharmaceutical research and work with professional pharmacists on things like healthcare and medication therapy management. 

“This is a prime example of how we are extending our reach to every corner of the globe in order to give our students a first-class education while investigating approaches to discovering new drugs,” said College of Pharmacy Dean John Pezzuto in a statement.

One joint project that’s already being considered would be at Rangsit University’s Sun Herb Thai Chinese Manufacturing Facility, where Rangsit faculty are already researching and conducting clinical trials of herbal pharmaceuticals in conjunction with researchers from China’s Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine.

Supakit Wongwiwatthananukit, an associate professor of pharmacy practice at UH Hilo who initiated the partnership, said UH Hilo would be able to bolster research being conducted at the Thai facility by integrating the work being done with Hawaiian traditional medicine and other natural products found in the islands.

The partnership marks the College of Pharmacy’s second agreement with a Thai university. The first was signed in 2011 with Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University. 

Photo: A pharmacy in Thailand. (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

— Alia Wong