The Department of Pharmacognosy is one of the oldest departments related to pharmaceutical education in our country, which began in 1942. Then the specialty of Pharmacy was opened at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Sofia University. In the academic year 1942/1943 the departments of Pharmacognosy with Galenic Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Chemistry were founded. In 1951 the department took over the teaching of botany (Assoc. Prof. Stoyu Valev). In 1990, a Laboratory (now a field) in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology (Prof. Iliana Ionkova) was opened at the Department. The beginning of inovative pharmacognosy in Bulgaria is set and modern programs for training and research are introduced, unified with the leading European universities. To this day, the Department of Pharmacognosy at the Faculty of Pharmacy MU – Sofia is the only one in the country offering training in Pharmaceutical Biotechnology for students, graduates, postgraduates and PhD students in pharmacy.

The first head of the department is Prof. Dr. Asparuh Boychinov (1946-1966), Prof. Hristo Akhtardzhiev (1966-1983), Prof. Ivan Assenov (1984-1999), Prof. Stefan Nikolov (1999-2015), Prof. Iliana Ionkova (2015- 2023) and Prof. Ilina Krasteva (from November 2023).