The College of Pharmacy, Manila Central University, started with a private review class conducted by Dr. Alejandro Albert in 1903. Upon the request of the Pharmacy students, Dr. Albert formally organized the College of Pharmacy in 1904, which was merged with the Liceo de Manila and became "Escuela del Farmacia de Liceo de Manila". He was the director of the school from 1904 to 1908. In 1908, Dr. Albert resigned giving way to Dr. Leon Ma. Guerrero, who was known as an eminent Filipino botanist. In 1915, Dr. Guerrero was appointed representative of the Philippines to the Panama Pacific Exposition. In that case, Dr. Albert again took charge of the school as Director.

The steady increase of enrolment urged the Director and the professors to construct a new building at the corner of Oroquieta and Zurbaran, which in 1915, gave birth to Manila College of Pharmcy (MCP) as an independent institution.

The MCP was incorporated and aming the incorporators were: Dr Alejandro Mamerro Feliciano Patemo, Dr. Alfredo Guerrero, Atty. Filemon D. Tanchoco, and Mr. Antonio Llamas. In 1917, the college was conferred authority to offer degrees of Graduate Pharmacy and Doctor of Pharmacy. In the same year, the new Dean, Mr. Mamerto Manalo succeeded Dr. Albert who was then appointed Assistant Director of the Bureau of Education. But then, Dr. Alfredo Guerrero succeeded Dean Manalo when the latter was appointed President of the Board pf Pharmaceutical Examiners and Inspectors. In 1936, Dr. Guerrero was appointed President of the Board of Trustees, so Mr. Antonio Llamas took over as Dean of MCP.

The MCP was one of the leading Filipino institutions of learning of its kind. In 1927, it could be gleaned from the Bureau of Civil Service records, that 50% of the graduates of Pharmacy in the Philippines were MCP graduates. The first women pharmacists were graduates of MCP.

From 1916 to 1936, tremendous efforts of self-improvement were made from the erection of the first school building to the reconstruction of a modern three-storey building, now four-storey, which stands today as College of Pharmacy building. The botany, chemistry, pharmacology, mineral assaying and laundry soap-making laboratories were improved with a number of shipments of apparatus and equipment from abroad. In 1938, laundry soap-making was made a part of the Pharmacy course for seniors and in 1940, laundry and medicated soap were produced in the MCP laboratory.

It was in 1941, when the MCP was enjoying prestige and popularity, when the Pacific war broke out. The college was holding a coronation ball with the reigning queen when the first bomb struck Pearl Harbor.

During the Japanese time, the college was occupied by Japanese forces that practically looted all its equipments, supplies, and chemicals. Liberation found the college of Pharmacy with its building left by the Japanese but filled with medical corps supplies. The people in the neighborhood, with frenzied madness, looted and destroyed everything, so that only the skeleton of the building remained.

The year 1946 was a year of reconstruction in Manila and a year of rehabilitation for the College of Pharmacy. Atty. and Mrs. Tanchoco invested all the money they had in re-opening The College of Pharmacy and its new sister college, The College of Liberal Arts. The first lecture tables and chairs were made of bamboo, which made it shadow of its former self. But with the initiative and untiring efforts of Atty. Filemon Tanchoco and his wife and with the cooperation of Dr. Alfredo Guerrero, it resumed once more its task of shaping young minds towards a prospective career in Pharmacy.

With the College of Pharmacy as nucleus, it rapidly formed into Manila Central Colleges and finally into Manila Central University, in 1948. It was not all always anxious to keep abreast with the current trends, in pharmaceutical education, it reopened its Graduate School. The College was given authority to confer the degree of Doctor of Pharmacy under the supervision of the standardization Committee of technical Colleges. The MCU Graduate School of Pharmacy, which concentrated in the teaching of Industrial Pharmaceutical Manufacturing was reportedly one of its kind in the Far East. With the opening and continued of drug manufacturing in the Philippines, the MCU Pharmaceutical Manufacturing and Research Council has ventured to offer opportunities to train men and women who may hold positions in the manufacturing industry. Today, the MCU Pharmaceutical Laboratory still stands the only one of its kind in Far East. It has gained recognition in the U.S. and in other countries. It became so famous that it was featured in the August issue of the Pharmacy International and in the July issue of the American Journal of Pharmacy. Messages of congratulations were extended to us from the faculty members of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science.

The Bureau of Health granted the MCU Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Laboratory manufacture and sell pharmaceutical preparations and biologicals to the public that its existence is highly recognized.

In 1964, the College of Pharmacy offered Medical Technology and recently a 2-year course Pharmacy Aide. Today, the College of Pharmacy still maintain its indisputable leadership along its line of specialty. True to its avowed objectives, it continues marching on through ages and ages, keeping in progress and enjoying the trust, confidence and support of its alumni, students, mentors, and the general public to whom it has faithfully dedicated its purpose of existence.