[1] Its facilities include the Innovation and Research Park,[2][3] which is designed to promote collaboration among academic and industry scientists, and Helix 51,[4] the first bioscience incubator in Lake County, Illinois.

A group of physicians and community leaders formed a nonprofit school to serve medical students who could attend only at night.

Located in downtown Chicago, the complex contained two undergraduate universities, three medical schools, seven hospitals, and colleges of dentistry, pharmacy, and nursing.

[5] From the beginning, Chicago Medical School's leaders rejected quotas to limit minority enrollment, believing that only a student's merit should play a role in the admissions process.

This amendment declared that admission to the School would be "based solely on academic accomplishment and character merit without discrimination as to race, religion, sex, or national origin.”[7] In the early 1960s, Sheinin advocated the creation of another university, which would enable medical students across all disciplines to train together and learn to work in teams.

This educational model, conceived by A. Nichols Taylor, then president of Chicago Medical School, and funded largely through the efforts of board chairman Herman M. Finch, brought together diagnostic, supportive, and investigative functions of medicine in one setting.

In October 2002, the university opened its new Health Sciences Building, a 140,000-square-foot (13,000 m2) facility that houses laboratories, auditoriums, classrooms, a student union, a bookstore, and the Feet First Museum.

In July 2003, the university opened its first phase of student housing, making the institution a residential campus for the first time in its history.

The Education and Evaluation Center and the John J. Sheinin, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc., Gross Anatomy Laboratory provide state-of-the-art equipment and multimedia resources by which students participate in their training.

These facilities promote the use of integrated technologies and novel approaches to the study of human anatomy, the practice of physical examination, and the art of taking a patient history.

In 2011, the university opened its fifth school, the College of Pharmacy, which is housed in the William J. and Elizabeth L. Morningstar Interprofessional Education Center (IPEC).

In January 2020, the university opened its $50 million Innovation and Research Park, a four-story, 100,000-square-foot addition on the north side of campus.

Two-thirds of the building’s space is allocated to RFU research labs and six disease-based centers, while the remaining third houses private healthcare industries and startups.

The College of Pharmacy (COP), founded in 2011, offers a four-year program that prepares students to practice in a variety of settings.

The pharmacy curriculum includes four types of teaching environments: lectures, workshops (where students work in small groups to solve problems and discuss patient cases), labs (where students practice formulating unique drug dosage forms or practice patient care in simulated environments), and experiential courses (clinical rotations).

The COP partners with medical centers, clinics, and community pharmacies in the Chicago and Wisconsin metropolitan areas to provide rotations.