Alexander (Sandy) Florence, CBE was Dean of The School of Pharmacy, (now the UCL School of Pharmacy) University of London from 1989-2006 having been  from 1975 Professor of Pharmaceutics at the University of Strathclyde.  Graduated BSc (Pharmacy) with first class honours from the University of Glasgow in 1962, PhD in 1965 and DSc (Strathclyde) in 1984.   In 1990 he founded with Gregory Gregoriadis the Centre for Drug Delivery Research in London.  Professor Emeritus 2006-date

He was a member of the UK Committee on Safety of Medicines for many years until 1999, and chaired its committee of Chemistry, Pharmacy and Standards.   Textbooks include Surfactant Systems: their chemistry, pharmacy and biology, 1988 (with David Attwood), five editions ofPhysicochemical Principles of Pharmacy, Pharmaceutical Press (also with David Attwood), the 5^th edition appearing in 2011.  An Introduction to Clinical Pharmaceutics was published in 2010.   Was founding co-editor with Vincent Lee of the Journal of Drug Targeting and is editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Pharmaceutics. A past President of the Controlled Release Society, he is a Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He holds Honorary doctorates from Hoshi University, Tokyo, the Universities of Copenhagen, East Anglia, London and Strathclyde.