Pharmacy Dean Steps Down, Leaves Behind a Legacy of Growth and Innovation
Ralph Altiere, PhD, one of the longest-serving deans at the CU Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, has announced his intention to step away from his role as dean. He will continue as a member of the faculty and focus on the education mission of the school.
“Dr. Altiere has been an integral part of our story as a campus, and we are grateful for his countless contributions to CU Pharmacy,” said Chancellor Don Elliman. “He has led the school through nearly two decades of growth and change, and we owe him a debt of gratitude for his longstanding service and commitment to pharmacy education and pharmaceutical research pursuits.”
Throughout his leadership, CU Pharmacy grew in stature and program offerings. Altiere led CU Pharmacy to the top tier of pharmacy schools in the country, ranked in the top 10% of more than 140 schools, and has fostered a culture of mentorship and support that has prepared countless students to lead in the field and drawn top talent to the faculty ranks.
“There simply are not enough superlatives to describe Ralph Altiere's profound influence on the Skaggs School of Pharmacy. His unrivaled work ethic, his resolute commitment to excellence, and his compassionate concern for students, faculty, and staff have combined to catapult the school to a position of national and international prominence,” said Dean Emeritus Louis Diamond, PhD. “Indeed, the extraordinary list of accomplishments Ralph Altiere has compiled during his long tenure as dean has created a legacy that will endure for decades to come.”
Altiere’s commitment to the school began long before it was even called the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. He originally joined the school in 1987 as an educator and researcher faculty member. Over the past 38 years, he has been an integral part of expanding the school’s programs and the faculty to four times its number in 1987. He was appointed to serve as associate dean of academic affairs in 1995. In that position, he oversaw the start of a distance education post-BS PharmD program for practicing pharmacists in 1998 and led creation of the pharmacy school’s entry-level Doctor of Pharmacy program in 1999. In 2014, an international PharmD program was accredited by ACPE that brought a U.S. accredited PharmD program to the international community. The program won the 2022 AACP Global SIG Program award.
New Home, New Name
(L) Dean Altiere speaks at the 2011 naming of the new pharmacy building. (R) Dean Altiere and Dean Emeritus Louis Diamond unveil the signage officially designating the school as the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.
Altiere became the dean of the pharmacy school in December 2006. During his first two years in the top post, he oversaw the 2008 move of the school from the CU Health Sciences Center in Denver to its current location on the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora. The physical move was indicative of the momentum that was taking place in the school.
By 2011, Altiere secured an additional $1M gift to supplement the $10 million gift from The ALSAM Foundation which helped fund the construction of the $48 million new pharmacy building and led to the naming of the school in honor of the Skaggs family’s long-standing support of the school, totaling nearly $40 million to date. Today the state-of-the-art building is a collaborative center of learning to prepare students for their roles as pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists. The ground level of the building houses Office of Student Services, Office of Experiential Programs, Distance Degrees and Programs, office suites for the Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research group, iDesign Team, Department of Clinical Pharmacy, and Marketing and Communications, clinical faculty offices, and conference space. Levels two through four are dedicated to pharmaceutical and toxicology research laboratories and innovation centers, the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences office suite, lunch/break room, conference rooms and the Edward and Karen Skaff Boardroom.
Growth in Research and Gifts
(L) Dean Altiere, far-right, participates in a ribbon cutting for the school's Center for Drug Discovery. (R) Technicians work preparing drugs for clinical trials in the Research Pharmacy
The new 170,000-square-foot pharmacy building signaled the start of numerous advancements and partnerships which would solidify the School of Pharmacy as a distinguished pharmaceutical science research facility. Under Altiere’s watch, the school rose to a top-10 NIH-funded research school.
Accomplishments at a Glance
2006 Altiere appointed Dean
2008 Skaggs Biomedical Research Symposium established with the other six Skaggs institutions
2008 School moves from the CU Health Science Center in Denver to the new Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora
2011 School receives additional $1 million gift to supplement a $10 million gift from the ALSAM Foundation and the Skaggs family
2011 School is named in honor of the long-time support from the Skaggs family
2011 The school leads establishment of the Skaggs Scholars Program with The ALSAM Foundation funding to support collaborative research among the seven Skaggs institutions
2012 School hosts Skaggs Biomedical Research Symposium
2012 School reaches top-10 ranking in NIH funding
2013 School becomes the administrative home of the Colorado Consortium for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention
2014 International-Trained PharmD becomes the first and only ACPE-accredited PharmD pathway with an international focus
2016 Ed and Karen Skaff Scholarship established
2019 Skaggs Scholars Program Endowment fully funded to support the program in perpetuity
2019 Teresa McMahan Schulkin Memorial Scholarship endowment fully funded to provide a half-tuition scholarship
2020 Cannabis Science and Medicine Program launches
2020 Drug Discovery Center launches
2021 School pilots one of the first remote PharmD programs in the nation
2022 International-Trained PharmD program wins the AACP Global SIG Program award
2022 Research Pharmacy opens its doors
2023 Remote PharmD accredited, becomes the Rocky Mountain Remote PharmD Pathway Program
2024 30th Anniversary of the Colorado Protein Stability Conference sponsored by the school’s Center for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology
2024 First endowed chair established with multi-million-dollar gift
2025 A total of nearly $40 million from The ALSAM Foundation received to date
2025 School endowments reach a 12-fold increase over 2006 level
Between 2007-2025 the school increased endowments to support research and student scholarships more than twelve-fold over the 2006 level.
In 2013 the new pharmacy building became the administrative home of the Colorado Consortium for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention. Today the Consortium coordinates Colorado’s response to the opioid crisis, oversees the state distribution of the national Tobacco Settlement Funds to fight addiction, and helps inform state and national policies related to addiction treatment.
With a keen view to accelerating drug discoveries, Altiere championed a $2 million ALSAM Foundation Gift which along with $1 million support from the Chancellor, made the Center for Drug Discovery a reality. The center is the only facility of its kind in the central U.S. focused solely on reducing the time and cost of screening new drugs and therapies. It is powered by a custom high-throughput automated robotic system which can cut screening time in half and a diverse drug library of 125,000 compounds as well as biologic and cell-based therapies.
More recently, Altiere supported a cross-collaborative project which resulted in the first Research Pharmacy on the CU Anschutz Medical Campus. Led by the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and in partnership with the School of Medicine, the CU Anschutz Chancellor, and the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, the Research Pharmacy opened its doors in late 2022. The facility is positioning the school to be a key player in managing clinical drug trials and potentially developing new pharmaceuticals, so new developments in drug therapy can be brought to market.
In January 2025, Altiere announced the school’s first Endowed Chair. Funded by a multi-million dollar gift from alumna Debra Devereaux, the endowment will drive translational research in pharmacogenomics and advance the school’s leadership in custom therapies and personalized medicine.
Innovative Academic Programs
(L) Doctor of Pharmacy students at spring commencement. (R) Dean Altiere addresses students at graduation.
With his early experience of ushering in the original Doctor of Pharmacy program under his belt, Altiere continued to lay the foundation for new academic offerings, including new degrees, new certificates, and even new delivery platforms.
Identifying an opportunity to build a Master of Science in Pharmaceutical Sciences program, Altiere brought in a former faculty member charged with not just directing the master’s degree, but also starting an entirely new program. By the spring of 2020, the Cannabis Science and Medicine graduate certificate and master’s track were offered for the first time at the School of Pharmacy. Today the five tracks in the MS degree program equip scientists and healthcare professionals to advance basic and clinical research with the goal of improving innovation and patient outcomes.
During the Covid pandemic when schools across the nation were grappling with how to maintain educational experiences, Dean Altiere and Senior Associate Dean for Student Affairs, Brian Hemstreet, PharmD, started one of the first remote Doctor of Pharmacy programs in 2021. When the pandemic subsided and in-person classes resumed, the synchronous, remote classes continued. In 2024, Altiere spearheaded the remote program’s reaccreditation as an alternative PharmD pathway for students who have economic or other barriers to accessing the traditional on-campus program. The innovative offering has been branded the Rocky Mountain Remote PharmD Pathway and may someday serve up to 40% of the Doctor of Pharmacy class.
Culture and Community
(L) Dean Altiere, far left, with members of the pharmacy executive team, grills up burgers at a recent "Pharmily Fun Day." (R) Faculty, researchers, and staff participate in a group activity at the first school-wide Pharmacy Retreat.
Barriers are something that Altiere has been working to dismantle for much of his career. He was an early advocate of diversity in the classroom, recognizing that underrepresented patients were more willing to engage with pharmacists with similar backgrounds and researchers with diverse backgrounds were more likely to search for solutions to health issues affecting marginalized communities.
Altiere promoted numerous scholarships that helped support students of diverse backgrounds and hired the school’s first Assistant Dean of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging in 2023, Erika Freitas, PhD, who focuses on assuring all students feel a sense of inclusion and belonging in the school. To this end, she also provides development programs for the faculty on how inclusive education is practiced so all students from any background feel included and recognized.
Identifying the toll that the pandemic had on all institutions, including the School of Pharmacy, Altiere engaged a national leader on culture building to help the school proactively create a thriving and dynamic organizational culture program. That effort culminated in the school’s first school-wide culture retreat in 2024 where faculty, staff, and researchers came together for two days of workshops and exploration of what would be known as the Pharmacy Fundamentals – a co-created set of 24 behaviors that serve as guiding principles for the school culture commitment.
Health Equity and Global Impact
(L) Dean Altiere honored at the International Pharmaceutical Federation. (R) Dean Altiere discusses partnership opportunities at the University of Nottingham, England School of Pharmacy.
As a long-standing leader in the advancement of global health equity, pharmacy education and patient care, Altiere held numerous leadership positions with FIP, the International Pharmaceutical Federation. Over the years he served on the Congress Program Committee and the Academic Institutional Membership advisory committee, as president of FIP’s Academic Pharmacy Section, director of the FIP-UNESCO-UNITWIN program and chair of FIP Education. He was an active participant in the 2016 FIP Conference on Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences Education in Nanjing, China that led to publication of the Pharmaceutical Workforce Development Goals and the Nanjing Statements on Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences Education. He most recently served as co-chair of the task force for updating the Nanjing Statements.
For more than 15 years, he has promoted FIP Education to academic pharmacy associations on every continent around the world. Recognized as a fellow of FIP in 2016, Altiere recently established an Industrial Pharmacy Education Working Group to develop guidance for establishing pharmacy education programs to support the workforce in countries developing their own pharmaceutical industry. His most recent FIP initiative included the formation of a global Advisory Committee for FIPEd with representatives from regional academic associations.
Altiere also led the school to engage with the campus’ Center for Global Health partnership at the Trifinio Clinic in Guatemala that serves as an international clinical rotation site for Anschutz Medical Campus students and residents including PharmD students. In addition, the school established pharmacy education programs in Turkey, Egypt and Qatar that advanced clinical pharmacy education and practice. He also led engagement with the FIP Pharmabridge Program to host pharmacy educators and practitioners from around the globe to learn about clinical pharmacy education and practice and return to their home countries to advance pharmacy education and practice
In honor of his longstanding commitment to global health equity, FIP recognized Altiere as the first recipient of the International Pharmaceutical Federation’s Award for Exceptional Leadership at the 2024 FIP World Congress in Cape Town, South Africa.
“It was my privilege to present this new FIP Award for Exceptional Leadership to Professor Ralph Altiere as its first recipient,” Daragh Connolly, Chairman of the FIP Board of Pharmaceutical Practice said. “His inclusive vision and energetic leadership have been pivotal in our federation’s successes . . . Professor Altiere exemplifies the qualities of a great leader in pharmacy.”
Altiere’s most recent international initiative is actively developing a partnership with the University of Nottingham School of Pharmacy in Nottingham, England. He, along with two other School of Pharmacy deans, traveled to the British school of pharmacy last spring for the purpose of developing collaborative opportunities for students, faculty and researchers, including the establishment of international hands-on learning opportunities for CU Pharmacy students. This collaboration has led to a virtual International Pharmacy Collaboration: Climate and Planetary Health Summit University of Colorado/University of Nottingham in March 2025.
Keeping Pace and Moving Forward
(L&R) Dean Altiere participates in the Bolder Boulder 10K race in 2023.
Altiere is keeping pace and surpassing expectations, not just with his professional career but also in his personal pursuit as a lifelong runner. For the last 21 years, he has participated in the Boulder Bolder 10K race. His best finishes to date were in his last four races when he finished third in his age group. His stellar finish belied the fact that he had contracted COVID the week before the 2024 race and was unable to properly train for the event. But, in true Altiere fashion, he laced up his shoes, suppressed his COVID cough, and took to the racecourse finishing third in his age category.
Buoyed by a stellar career, and a character steeped in steadfastness and determination, those who know Altiere fully expect him to not miss a beat as he returns to the faculty to continue his distinguished academic career.