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Colorado Pharmacist — Requirements & Free Practice

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Pharmacist

Colorado license to engage in the practice of pharmacy.

Licensing authority: Colorado State Board of Pharmacy · Application information

Initial licensure by examination or NAPLEX score transfer for graduates of a Board approved school or college of pharmacy
Application Method
Examination or NAPLEX score transfer
Education
Graduate of a Colorado Board-approved school or college of pharmacy
Initial licensure by examination or NAPLEX score transfer for graduates of a pharmacy school outside the United States
Application Method
Examination or NAPLEX score transfer
Education
Graduate with a pharmacy degree from a school outside the United States
License transfer or endorsement
Colorado-specific Multistate Pharmacy Jurisprudence Examination
Experience
Licensed for at least one year in another state or completed an internship meeting Colorado requirements at original licensure
Prior License
Active, current, and in good standing pharmacist license issued by examination in another state
Reinstatement or reactivation after more than 24 months
Colorado-specific Multistate Pharmacy Jurisprudence Examination
License Status
["expired","inactive"]
Status Duration
More than 24 months
Reinstatement or reactivation before 24 months
No examination is required for this applicant pathway.
License Status
["expired","inactive"]
Status Duration
Less than 24 months

Official no-examination sources

Effective from 2026-09-22.

Colorado-specific Multistate Pharmacy Jurisprudence Examination

Provider
National Association of Boards of Pharmacy
Format
Computer-based adaptive selected-response examination
Exam questions
120 questions: 100 scored and 20 pretest
Time limit
2.5-hour examination; 3-hour total appointment
Examination outline
  • Area 1 — Licensure/Personnel (22%)
    • Responsibilities of the pharmacist and non-pharmacist personnel
    • Qualifications, scope of duties, limitations, and restrictions of duties, or conditions to practice for pharmacists-in-charge (or equivalent) and pharmacists
    • Qualifications, scope of duties, limitations, and restrictions of duties, or conditions to practice for non-pharmacist personnel
    • Licensures, registrations, and certifications for pharmacists or non-pharmacist personnel
    • Qualifications, examinations, internships, maintaining pharmacist competency, and renewals of licensures, registrations, or certifications
    • Classifications and processes of disciplinary actions
    • Reporting to and participating in programs addressing the inability to practice with reasonable skill and safety
  • Area 2 — Pharmacist Practice (33%)
    • Requirements for issuing prescriptions/drug orders
    • Requirements for drug uses, limitations, or restrictions
    • Scope of authority, scope of practice, limitations or restrictions of practice, and valid registration of practitioners who are authorized to prescribe, dispense, or administer drugs
    • Requirements for issuing non-controlled prescriptions/drug orders
    • Requirements for issuing controlled prescriptions/drug orders
    • Authority limitations of practitioners’ ability to authorize refills
    • Conditions under which the pharmacist or non-pharmacist personnel participates in the administration of drugs in the management of patients’ therapy
    • Requirements regarding counseling
    • Counseling or offering to counsel
    • Documenting counseling or documenting offering to counsel
    • Returning or reusing drugs
    • Regulations and agencies regarding pharmacy practice
    • Requirements for promoting quality and safety of public health
    • Protecting patient and health record confidentiality
  • Area 3 — Dispensing Requirements (24%)
    • Responsibilities for determining whether prescriptions/drug orders are issued for a legitimate medical purpose, and within all applicable restrictions
    • Transferring prescription/drug order information between pharmacies by authorized personnel
    • Prospective drug utilization reviews
    • Requirements for reporting to PMP and accessing PMP data
    • Exceptions to dispensing or refilling prescriptions/drug orders
    • Labeling of dispensed drugs
    • Packaging of dispensed drugs
    • Drug product conditions prohibiting dispensing
    • Requirements for the distribution and/or dispensing of non-prescription pharmaceutical products, including controlled substances and hazardous drugs
    • Dispensing or administration
    • Labeling of non-prescription drugs and devices
    • Packaging and repackaging of non-prescription drugs and behind-the-counter products
    • Dispensing-restricted, non-prescription drugs
  • Area 4 — Pharmacy Operations (21%)
    • Ordering, acquisition, and distribution of drugs, including maintenance and content of such records
    • Ordering and acquisition, including the maintenance and content of such records
    • Distribution, including the maintenance and content of such records
    • Recordkeeping in compliance with legal requirements, including content, inventory, maintenance, storage, handling, and reporting
    • Non-dispensing requirements for operations of pharmacies or practice settings
    • Possession, storage, and handling of non-hazardous drugs
    • Training, possession, handling, storage, and disposal of hazardous drugs
    • Allowing non-pharmacist personnel access to drugs
    • Requirements for conducting controlled substance inventories
    • Delivery of drugs
    • Conditions for permitted or mandated product selection
    • Compounding sterile, nonsterile, hazardous, and non-hazardous preparations
    • Centralized prescription processing or central-fill pharmacy dispensing
    • Requirements for the registration, licensure, certification, or permitting of a practice setting or business entity
    • Requirements for registration, license, certification, or permitting of a practice setting
    • Requirements for the renewal or reinstatement of a license, registration, certificate, or permit of a practice setting
    • Requirements for an inspection of a licensed, registered, certified, or permitted practice setting
    • Classifications and processes of disciplinary actions that may be taken against a registered, licensed, certified, or permitted practice setting
Examination sources

Foreign Pharmacy Graduate Equivalency Examination

Provider
National Association of Boards of Pharmacy
Format
Computerized fixed form
Exam questions
200 questions
Time limit
4.5 hours examination time; 5.5 hours total seat time
Passing score
Scaled score of 75
Examination outline
  • Foundational Biomedical Sciences (12%)
    • Anatomy and physiology
    • Biochemistry
    • Medical microbiology
    • Immunology
    • Pathophysiological bases of diseases
  • Pharmaceutical Sciences (31%)
    • Pharmaceutical calculations (eg, dose adjustments, delivery, ionization, ionic strength, isotonicity, ratio/percentage strength, osmolarity)
    • Medicinal chemistry
    • Medicinal chemistry: Physicochemical properties of drugs in relation to drug absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME)
    • Medicinal chemistry: Pathways of drug metabolism
    • Medicinal chemistry: Chemical bases for drug action, including bioorganic chemistry, structure-activity relationships, and fundamental pharmacophores related to drug-receptor interactions
    • Medicinal chemistry: Applicability to making drug therapy decisions
    • Pharmacology and toxicology
    • Pharmacology and toxicology: Pharmacodynamics, including drug-receptor interactions, agonists, antagonists, inverse agonists, and dose-response curves
    • Pharmacology and toxicology: Mechanisms of action of drugs, including biologics
    • Pharmacology and toxicology: Adverse effects and side effects of drugs
    • Pharmacology and toxicology: Mechanisms of drug interactions, including drug-drug, drug-disease, drug-food, drug-allergy, and drug-laboratory interactions
    • Pharmacology and toxicology: Mechanisms of acute and chronic toxic effects of xenobiotics, including drug and chemical overdose or exposure and antidotes
    • Pharmaceutics and biopharmaceutics
    • Pharmaceutics and biopharmaceutics: Dosage form development and drug delivery systems such as immediate release, sustained release, and controlled release
    • Pharmaceutics and biopharmaceutics: Disintegration and dissolution of solid oral dosage forms
    • Pharmaceutics and biopharmaceutics: Physicochemical properties of drugs, excipients, solutions, and dosage forms
    • Pharmaceutics and biopharmaceutics: Physical stability, chemical stability, and shelf-lives, including zero-, first-, second-, and pseudo-order reactions
    • Pharmaceutics and biopharmaceutics: Interactions between drug formulation and biological effects
    • Pharmaceutics and biopharmaceutics: Drug product manufacturing, including methods, processing, and quality assurance
    • Pharmacokinetics
    • Pharmacokinetics: Determining rates of absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME) of drugs
    • Pharmacokinetics: Factors affecting rates of ADME, including age, sex, genetics, diet, disease, and drug interactions
    • Pharmacokinetics: Biological half-lives of drugs and related dosing
    • Pharmacokinetics: Compartment models (one-, two-, and non-)
    • Pharmacokinetics: Linear and nonlinear pharmacokinetics
    • Pharmacokinetics: Principles of bioavailability, bioequivalence, and biosimilars
    • Pharmacogenomics (eg, population-based genetic influences on drug metabolism and efficacy, genetic testing, tumor genotyping, pharmacogenetic screening)
    • Extemporaneous compounding (eg, United States Pharmacopeia (USP) standards including Chapters <795>, <797>, and <800>; dosage form preparation calculations; techniques used to prepare and dispense sterile and nonsterile preparations)
  • Social, Behavioral, and Administrative Sciences (20%)
    • Pharmacy law and ethics
    • Pharmacy law and ethics: Laws and regulations governing pharmacy
    • Pharmacy law and ethics: Regulatory, oversight, and professional organizations
    • Pharmacy law and ethics: Principles and application of biomedical ethics
    • Health care systems
    • Health care systems: Organization, regulation, and financing of health care delivery in the United States
    • Health care systems: Factors that influence delivery and use of health care (eg, social, political, economic, and technological)
    • Pharmacoeconomics (eg, analysis, interpretation, application, humanistic outcomes)
    • Population-based care, pharmacoepidemiology, and public health
    • Population-based care, pharmacoepidemiology, and public health: Data sources and analytic tools
    • Population-based care, pharmacoepidemiology, and public health: Application of epidemiological study design
    • Population-based care, pharmacoepidemiology, and public health: Health promotion, disease prevention, and infection control
    • Population-based care, pharmacoepidemiology, and public health: Continuous quality improvement
    • Population-based care, pharmacoepidemiology, and public health: Social determinants and drivers of health
    • Practice management
    • Practice management: Financial management and budgeting
    • Practice management: Personnel management
    • Practice management: Business and strategic planning
    • Practice management: Risk management
    • Practice management: Procurement and inventory control
    • Professional communication
    • Professional communication: Verbal, nonverbal, written, and technology-based communication with patients, caregivers, providers, and stakeholders
    • Professional communication: Health literacy
    • Biostatistics and research methods (eg, study design, statistical tests, data collection instruments, research ethics)
    • Social and behavioral aspects of practice
    • Social and behavioral aspects of practice: Patient behavior including health-, illness-, and sick-role
    • Social and behavioral aspects of practice: Principles of behavior modification
    • Social and behavioral aspects of practice: Patient adherence
    • Social and behavioral aspects of practice: Cultural awareness
  • Pharmacy Practice and Clinical Sciences (37%)
    • Clinical pathophysiology as it applies to treatment of disease processes
    • Data collection (eg, patient history, physical assessments, laboratory values, point-of-care testing)
    • Data assessment (eg, clinical calculations, interpretation of data, diagnosing)
    • Patient-care decision making, therapy recommendations, and education (eg, plan, implement, monitor, follow-up)
    • Patient safety (eg, drug interactions, toxicity, drug-induced disease, drug use disorders)
    • Disease prevention (eg, screenings, immunization, non-pharmacological therapies, lifestyle modifications)
    • Personalized medicine (eg, pharmacokinetics, pharmacogenetics)
    • Evidence-based practice
    • Evidence-based practice: Practice guidelines
    • Evidence-based practice: Drug information and evaluation
    • Evidence-based practice: Information source reliability
    • Evidence-based practice: Clinical trial evaluation
    • Self-care, including using natural products
Examination sources

North American Pharmacist Licensure Examination

Provider
National Association of Boards of Pharmacy
Format
Computerized fixed form
Exam questions
225 questions
Time limit
6 hours
Passing score
Pass or Fail
Examination outline
  • Foundational Knowledge for Pharmacy Practice (25%)
    • Pharmaceutical science principles and concepts
    • Pharmaceutical science principles and concepts: Pharmacology
    • Pharmaceutical science principles and concepts: Pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, or pharmacogenomics
    • Pharmaceutical science principles and concepts: Pharmaceutics
    • Pharmaceutical compounding
    • Pharmaceutical compounding: Nonsterile preparations
    • Pharmaceutical compounding: Sterile preparations
    • Pharmaceutical calculations
    • Pharmaceutical calculations: Patient parameters or laboratory measures
    • Pharmaceutical calculations: Quantities of drugs to be dispensed or administered
    • Pharmaceutical calculations: Rates of administration
    • Pharmaceutical calculations: Dose conversions
    • Pharmaceutical calculations: Drug concentrations, ratio strengths, osmolarity, or osmolality
    • Pharmaceutical calculations: Quantities of drugs or ingredients to be compounded
    • Pharmaceutical calculations: Nutritional needs and the content of nutrient sources
    • Pharmaceutical calculations: Biostatistical, epidemiological, or pharmacoeconomic measures
    • Pharmaceutical calculations: Pharmacokinetic parameters
    • Drug development processes (eg, clinical trial phases, emergency use authorizations)
    • Research design principles and biostatistics (eg, blinding, randomization, biases, statistical tests and outcomes, ethics)
    • Retrieval, assessment, and interpretation of primary, secondary, and tertiary resources
  • Medication Use Process (Prescribing, Transcribing and Documenting, Dispensing, Administering, and Monitoring) (25%)
    • Prescriptions and medication order interpretation
    • Prescriptions and medication order interpretation: Drug names and therapeutic classes
    • Prescriptions and medication order interpretation: Indications, usage, and dosing regimens
    • Prescriptions and medication order interpretation: Available dosage forms
    • Prescriptions and medication order interpretation: Prescription regulations (eg, boxed warnings, risk evaluation and mitigation strategies)
    • Prescriptions and medication order interpretation: Safety and effectiveness (eg, laboratory parameters, vital signs)
    • Therapeutic substitutions (eg, formulary restrictions, therapeutic alternatives, shortages, biosimilars)
    • Immunization services and documentation
    • Immunization services and documentation: Indications and scheduling
    • Immunization services and documentation: Contraindications and precautions
    • Immunization services and documentation: Storage and handling
    • Immunization services and documentation: Administration (eg, techniques, preparation, routes)
    • Immunization services and documentation: Adverse reactions
    • Medication handling, storage, stability, and disposal (eg, hazardous and nonhazardous drugs, controlled substances, parenteral medications, sharps handling, temperature control)
  • Person-Centered Assessment and Treatment Planning (40%)
    • Medication history, allergy history, and reconciliation
    • Health histories, screenings, and assessments
    • Patient health conditions, including special populations and medication-related factors
    • Patient health conditions, including special populations and medication-related factors: Signs, symptoms, and findings of medical conditions, etiology of diseases, or pathophysiology
    • Patient health conditions, including special populations and medication-related factors: Appropriateness of therapy (eg, medications, immunizations, non-drug therapy, dosing, contraindications, warnings, evidence-based decision making)
    • Patient health conditions, including special populations and medication-related factors: Interactions (eg, drug-drug, drug-condition, drug-food, drug-allergy, drug-laboratory)
    • Patient health conditions, including special populations and medication-related factors: Errors and omissions (eg, dosing, duplication, additional therapy needed, unnecessary therapy)
    • Patient health conditions, including special populations and medication-related factors: Adverse drug reactions
    • Patient health conditions, including special populations and medication-related factors: Toxicologic exposures and overdoses
    • Patient health conditions, including special populations and medication-related factors: Adherence
    • Therapeutic monitoring, plan development, evaluation, and modifications
    • Therapeutic monitoring, plan development, evaluation, and modifications: Therapeutic goals, clinical endpoints, and follow-up
    • Therapeutic monitoring, plan development, evaluation, and modifications: Safety
    • Therapeutic monitoring, plan development, evaluation, and modifications: Effectiveness
    • Patient education
    • Patient education: Lifestyle modifications and health maintenance
    • Patient education: Medication use, storage, and disposal
    • Patient education: Disease state management
    • Over-the-counter medications and dietary supplements
    • Devices to administer medications and self-monitoring tests
  • Professional Practice (5%)
    • Adverse drug event reporting and medication error reporting (eg, MedWatch, VAERS)
    • Public health initiatives and risk-prevention programs (eg, tobacco and nicotine cessation, antimicrobial stewardship, health screenings, opioid stewardship)
    • Social determinants and drivers of health
    • Ethical considerations (eg, informed consent, ethical principles, professional conduct and responsibility, patient confidentiality)
  • Pharmacy Management and Leadership (5%)
    • Pharmacy operations (eg, operational planning, risk management, regulations and regulatory bodies, technology applications and informatics, error-prevention strategies, medication safety)
    • Inventory and supply management (eg, drug recalls, drug shortages)
    • Quality improvement activities (eg, medication use evaluation, root-cause analysis, continuous quality improvement)
    • Mentorship and preceptorship (eg, providing and receiving feedback, delegation of work activities, preceptor roles)
Examination sources