PORTLAND (AP) – The University of New England said Thursday it plans to open a college of pharmacy in Portland and operate it in partnership with the University of Maine and hospitals in four Maine cities.

The plan calls for about 100 students to enter the two-year pre-pharmacy program next fall; the four-year professional program would begin as early as fall of 2008 and no later than fall of 2009.

The announcement came less than a month after Husson College unveiled plans for a pharmacy school in Bangor.

UNE said its new college will place a significant emphasis on biomedical research while helping to meet the state’s critical shortage of pharmacists.

“The college’s research orientation – its strong discovery piece – will make us very different from most other pharmacy schools in the country and any other pharmacy school in northern New England,” said UNE President Danielle Ripich. “Our goal is to be one of the top-ranked pharmacy schools in the nation.”

Ripich was joined at the announcement by Gov. John Baldacci, Portland Mayor James Cohen, UMaine President Robert Kennedy and representatives of the hospitals involved in the project.

John Cormier, former dean of the College of Pharmacy at the Medical University of South Carolina, was named founding dean of the new college. Cormier served as a consultant to UNE as it was studying the addition of a pharmacy school.

UNE and the University of Maine plan to work together on academic programming, officials said, while clinical training and research partnerships have been established with Maine Medical Center and Mercy Hospital, both in Portland; Southern Maine Medical Center in Biddeford and Maine General Health and Medical Center in Augusta and Waterville.

A pharmacy program has been a long-term goal at UNE, which has a medical school at its Biddeford campus. The university said two months ago that the site search had been narrowed to an old mill in Biddeford or the former Westbrook College campus in Portland that UNE acquired in 1996.

Husson announced last month that its six-year pharmacy program will begin in 2008, with the first doctorates in pharmacy to be awarded in 2014. It projected a first-year enrollment of 65 students that would increase over time.

Ripich said there are enough pharmacy students to support both schools. Nationally, there are 90 accredited pharmacy schools with seven applicants for every opening, she said.

“I’m not concerned that there will be a shortage of applicants,” Ripich said.

When students graduate, they should have plenty of job opportunities because of the shortage of pharmacists in the state, she added.