Dean Jere E. Goyan

Dean, 1967–1992

Jere Edwin Goyan was the first alumnus dean of the UC San Francisco School of Pharmacy (Dean Frank T. Green was a graduate of the original College of Pharmacy). He earned a PhD in pharmaceutical chemistry in 1957, officially from the University of California, Berkeley before UC's ninth campus in San Francisco was given full administrative independence in 1964. After serving on the faculty of the University of Michigan, he returned to the School of Pharmacy as a member of the faculty in 1963, with pharmacokinetics as his principal research interest.

He became dean in 1967, serving until 1992. During his tenure, the School became the leading recipient of National Institutes of Health research funding, and the PharmD program was consistently ranked first-place in the United States. He is credited with leading the establishment at UCSF of an innovative clinical pharmacy curriculum dedicated to educating pharmacists as drug therapy specialists.

Goyan was Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from 1979 to 1981, the first pharmacist to serve. The drug information now routinely included with prescription drugs originated during his service, against strong opposition from the pharmaceutical industry. Under his leadership, the FDA was famously concerned about toxic shock syndrome and PCB contamination of animal feed. After the controversial end to his tenure at the FDA, he returned to UCSF as dean of the School of Pharmacy, where he served until 1992 when he moved to an executive position in the pharmaceutical industry. He received the Remington Honor Medal, the highest national award in pharmacy, from the American Pharmaceutical Association; he also held many honorary degrees. He died in Kingwood, Texas, in 2007.

Associate Dean Robert Day said of him, “He was the single most persuasive influence on the pharmacy profession. His conviction that clinical experience should be part of a pharmacist's training and practice, although revolutionary when he proposed it, is now accepted internationally.”

Sources: FDA (Food and Drug Administration), SF Chronicle, UCSF News.