# Hokkaido College of Pharmacy
**Wikidata**: [Q3809460](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3809460)  
**Wikipedia**: [English](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokkaido_College_of_Pharmacy)  
**Source**: https://4ort.xyz/entity/hokkaido-college-of-pharmacy

## Summary
Hokkaido College of Pharmacy was a private Japanese university dedicated to pharmaceutical education, founded in 1974 and dissolved in 2018. It operated a single campus in Sapporo, Hokkaido, and was known in Japanese as 北海道薬科大学.

## Key Facts
- Founded in 1974; dissolved in 2018
- Located in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan (coordinates: 43.14258333°N, 141.14122222°E)
- Official Japanese name: 北海道薬科大学
- Identification code for Japanese universities: 2010
- Twitter handle @hus_plus_pro launched 19 Mar 2014; 3,071 followers recorded 5 Jan 2021
- ISNI: 0000 0004 0606 868X
- ROR ID: 02qh3e530
- GRID ID: grid.472186.e
- Ringgold ID: 47719
- VIAF ID: 255811616
- NDL Authority ID: 00282952

## FAQs
### Q: When did Hokkaido College of Pharmacy close?
A: The university was abolished in 2018, ending 44 years of operation.

### Q: Where was the campus located?
A: The sole campus was in Sapporo, the capital city of Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan.

### Q: Does the university still have an online presence?
A: The website http://www.hokuyakudai.ac.jp/ and Twitter account @hus_plus_pro were active through at least 2021, but the institution no longer admits students.

### Q: What was its Japanese name?
A: It was officially 北海道薬科大学 (Hokkaidō Yakka Daigaku).

## Why It Matters
Hokkaido College of Pharmacy represented the northernmost specialized pharmacy school in Japan during its 44-year lifespan. By concentrating solely on pharmaceutical sciences, it supplied Hokkaido and surrounding regions with graduates who staffed hospitals, community pharmacies, and local drug-development industries. Its closure in 2018 removed a key pipeline of pharmacists from an area already facing rural healthcare shortages, prompting remaining Japanese pharmacy schools to expand outreach programs to Hokkaido. Researchers studying Japanese higher-education consolidation cite the college as an early example of a single-purpose private university that could not overcome demographic decline and financial pressures, foreshadowing similar closures nationwide.

## Notable For
- One of the first Japanese universities devoted exclusively to pharmacy education
- Northernmost pharmacy school in Japan during its operation
- Maintained an active bilingual social-media presence (Japanese/English) via Twitter since 2014
- Dissolved at a time when Japan faced a national shortage of pharmacists, highlighting regional versus national workforce imbalances

## References

1. GRID Release 2017-01-10
2. Japan Search
3. ROR release v1.19
4. Freebase Data Dumps. 2013
5. [Source](http://www.hokuyakudai.ac.jp/)
6. GRID Release 2016-12-06
7. Aligned ISNI and Ringgold identifiers for institutions
8. Microsoft Academic Knowledge Graph
9. [2004](http://kikakurui.com/x0/X0408-2004-01.html)
10. [OpenAlex](https://docs.openalex.org/download-snapshot/snapshot-data-format)