Medicinal chemistry is the core second-level discipline under the first-level discipline of pharmacy in Shenyang Pharmaceutical University. In the fourth round of national discipline evaluation announced at the end of 2017, the pharmacy ranking of Shenyang Pharmaceutical University was "A" and ranked among 104 participating universities in the country, which was at the same level of Peking University and Zhejiang University, entering the top 4.81%, and one of the highest-ranked disciplines among universities in Liaoning Province.

The discipline of medicinal chemistry is the longest history of traditional superior disciplines in Shenyang Pharmaceutical University, which began to recruit graduate students in 1956. It is the first batch of master's programs (1981) and the second batch of doctoral programs (1984) approved by China government. The discipline of medicinal chemistry also has a postdoctoral research workstation (1991). Besides, it belongs to provincial key discipline in Liaoning (since 1996).

Medicinal chemistry is a discipline that aims at discovery of innovative drugs and synthesis of drug molecules. The research covers drug molecular design, synthesis and structure-activity relationship, target identification and chemical biology, structural modification and total synthesis of natural products, and optimization of drug synthesis process.

Teamwork contains Ministry of Education innovation team of "Changjiang Scholars and Innovation Team Development Plan", Ministry of Education Key Laboratory of "Target-based Drug Design and Research Laboratory",  major science and technology platform of universities in Liaoning Province,  Key laboratory of Liaoning province, Key laboratory of Shenyang city, as well as 3 international cooperation laboratories, and 7 university-industry cooperative research centers.

There are 18 professors and doctoral supervisors in the discipline of medicinal chemistry, including 4 second-level professors; 10 associate professors and master supervisors; 2 lecturers. One of them was elected in the "National Hundreds and Thousands of Talents Project", one is in charge of the innovation team of the Ministry of Education, two are recipients of the special government allowance of the State Council, one is national young and middle-aged outstanding contribution expert. Other expert titles include, four Liaoning special professors, three outstanding teachers in Liaoning province. All full-time teachers have doctoral degrees, and more than 90% have overseas study experience.

Members in the Discipline of Medicinal Chemistry undertook and completed 18 national-level projects such as the national "863" plan, national major scientific and technological projects, 17 national natural science fund projects, 60 provincial, ministerial and municipal projects, and received a total of more than 40 million yuan in funding. 158 joint projects were signed with total contract value of 48.196 million yuan, and nearly 30 million yuan has been paid. 9 provincial and ministerial awards, and 5 municipal awards were achieved. 30 Chinese and foreign patents have been authorized.  4 national 1.1 category new drug were proved for clinical trial. The maximum single transfer of new NCE is 100 million yuan. More than 400 research papers have been published, including more than 160 SCI cited articles. More than 40 academic monographs and textbooks have been published.