Qatar Pharmacist Exam (NPQE): 150 Questions, 60% Pass, 2025 Blueprint

Qatar's pharmacist exam changed on 1 May 2025. Circular DHP/2025/03 announced the National Pharmacy Qualifying Exam (NPQE) "with updated content and a list of references", made it "a mandatory requirement for pharmacist licensing in the state of Qatar", and replaced the blueprint and books candidates had used until then. Much of what is online still describes the old version. This guide is built from the new blueprint and DHP's own pages.

DHP NPQE blueprint; circular DHP/2025/03.

The duration is the one figure DHP gives two ways. The blueprint in force since May 2025 says "150 MCQs, 3 ½ hours"; the table on the qualifying-exam page, which uses the same wording for every profession, says 3 hours. The blueprint is the newer and more specific document, and likely right for the appointment — but practising to the shorter figure costs nothing: pace yourself on 3 hours of answering time (about 72 seconds a question) and treat any extra as margin. Your Prometric booking confirmation will state the appointment length, which may also include check-in and a tutorial.

Qatar publishes item counts, not percentages: 7 basic biomedical, 38 pharmaceutical sciences, 38 social, behavioural and administrative, and 67 clinical-sciences questions. The shape is unusual. Clinical sciences alone are close to half the paper, basic biomedical science is under 5%, and the social and administrative area — pharmacy management, law, ethics, public health, communication — is as large as pharmaceutical sciences. A candidate who revises the way a B.Pharm is taught, heavy on pharmaceutics and chemistry, is preparing for a different exam.

Pharmacokinetics is not a separate area in the blueprint, but DHP's reference list gives it away: six of the fourteen secondary books are about pharmacokinetics or drug dosing, from Winter's Basic Clinical Pharmacokinetics to a casebook on clinical dosing. It sits across two areas — the science in pharmaceutical sciences, the dosing decisions in clinical sciences — so it can reach well over a tenth of the paper. Loading and maintenance doses, clearance, half-life, renal adjustment and therapeutic drug monitoring are worth practising until they are quick.

Circular DHP/2025/03 said the previous blueprint and references "will remain valid until 30/04/2025" and that the updated content applies "starting from 01/05/2025". Anyone who studied from notes, question banks or book lists before that date should check them against the new reference list: the primary resources now include four Qatar Ministry of Public Health documents, and the secondary list was rebuilt around pharmacokinetics, patient assessment and hospital standards.

The four primary Qatar resources are what make this exam Qatar's. The National Health Strategy 2024–2030 and the National Health Services pages describe how care is organised and what the ministry is trying to achieve; the Qatar Dietary Guidelines cover nutrition advice a pharmacist gives; and the Departments at the Ministry of Public Health set out who regulates what. They feed the 38 social, behavioural and administrative questions, and no international review book covers them. They are free on moph.gov.qa; read them in full rather than in summaries.

The new exam moved about 23 questions out of basic and pharmaceutical sciences and into clinical and social-administrative sciences: clinical rose from 52 to 67, and pharmaceutical sciences — once the largest block at 53 — fell to 38. The old reference list even pointed to Saudi drug and immunisation lists; the new one points to Qatar's own Ministry of Public Health documents. Question banks built before May 2025 are weighted for a different paper.