Students pursuing a PhD with a concentration in Molecular Pharmaceutics are required to participate in a common core of entry-level graduate courses. This core provides a broad perspective of the pharmaceutical sciences as well as an appreciation for how different subdisciplines interact. Building on this core, graduate students then specialize, through advanced coursework and research, in an area of concentration within the division. Many of the dissertation projects undertaken by students in Molecular Pharmaceutics are collaborative in nature and rely upon interactions with pharmacy faculty as well as with colleagues in the School of Medicine, the Department of Chemistry, or at one of the pharmaceutical companies (e.g., GlaxoSmithKline) or institutions (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology) located in the Research Triangle Park.

Graduates of the divisional program are highly sought after, primarily by industry, and often receive offers of employment well in advance of finishing their degree. The fact that graduates of the program are readily employable, often with more than one position from which to choose, attests to the demand for researchers in this field. The constantly changing landscape of the pharmaceutical industry makes it difficult to determine the number of positions availabe for PhD-level graduates specializing in drug delivery. However, data from the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, the primary national organization for the pharmaceutical sciences, indicate that approximately 3,000 positions exist for scientists with a PhD in the subspecialties represented by the Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics.